I think the Puma replacement will be the complete opposite of 'niche', it will need to be fully multi-role to justify it's existence which imho means minimum 10 troops, EO/IR camera, min .50 cal weapon that can be stuffed in the back of a C17/A400 easily or self-deployable at speed (e.g. tilt rotor). Unfortunately pretty much anything out there at the moment is based on a 50 year old idea of how a helicopter should work, so hopefully we will see some innovation over the next decade that will give us some really interesting options.