What goes thru these peoples minds - does piloting a helicopter attract certain gung ho people?
I'm afraid it does seem to. Often the self-assured type, successful in business (hence the spare cash) who don't like to be told anything.
I once arrived at an airfield up north in a fully IFR equipped helicopter to hear a R-44 calling up prior to departing. Hearing this, I advised ATC that the weather we had just flown through was very poor (low cloud, poor vis, heavy rain, blustery winds). It was soon going to become dark, too. This was passed on to the R-44 pilot, who obviously didn't seem to think this was a problem because he took off anyway (I wouldn't have done, even in our machine). He crashed before reaching his destination.