The numbers back you up llamaman.
In recent years we have spent a lot of time on PPRuNe discussing accidents with new-ish large rotorcraft types (92 & 225) whose forty-odd total fatalities across 12+ years of service are a small fraction of the fatalities in some older types. Since the 1960s when this size of rotorcraft began to emerge, probably between five and ten thousand people have died in them. Many of those didn't make the papers and only a small fraction have been discussed in depth on the internet.
but trying to compare aviation in the 60s and 70s to today is like trying to compare motor racing then and now.
The number of fatalities has drastically reduced because the accident rates forced improvements in safety - it has nothing to do with handling skills or lack thereof, modern F1 drivers and incredibly skilled but they crash less and survive more when they do because of safety improvements in construction and engineering. The same applies to aviation so a simple stats analysis of numbers of crashes or lives lost isn't really valid.
As with motorsport, aviation is on a journey to constantly improve performance and efficiency whilst making the whole process safer.
As we have discussed, automation (and our reliance upon it) has to be introduced, administered and monitored wisely.