My goodness, there is a bit too much idealistic nonsense being talked about here I'm afraid.
Nick - first of all of course I have great respect for you but to say all commercial heli ops should be with IFR equipped aircraft and fly on heli airways and approaches is sorry, ridiculous. The cost inflating effects of this would surely wipe out over half the industry - you should know more than me. A vast amount of commercial heli ops can use VFR singles perfectly safely, and at much less cost. It just takes pilots to understand and respect the ops limits - as has to happen with IFR aircraft. And I say this as someone who has only flown IFR twins for the last 15 years plus.
And secondly it is ludicrous to say blame should be laid at regulators for not approving heli approaches and operators for not spending enough to equip helis with IFR kit etc. Frankly I think it is insulting to a whole load of very competent VFR pilots and VFR aircraft operators to consider they should not be doing what they do. And regulators who don't want to suffocate an industry. It is simply a case of pilots, operators and clients understanding and respecting the safe limitations of what the customer can afford. With a VFR single that means not being able to go sometimes. Simple. As with IFR twins - albeit less often.
Nick - competent pilots in airworthy helis don't crash them. We DO need to blame those that are not, and safeguard the cost effectiveness of the VFR heli industry. And the same applies to IFR twins. Most accidents are still caused by pilot error. Those that are not up to it should find another job. Which will protect the reputations of those that are, and competent operators too.
Shy - I normally agree with pretty much all you say, but whilst it would be great to have proper city heliports, even if we do get a few more, it won't make much of a dent in the accident rate - most happen where helicopters usually go - to ad hoc landing sites. It's not going to happen, at least on any scale. The vast majority of us can fly around perfectly safely to such ad hoc sites. It's not that difficult - and that's the virtue of a helicopter. Back to pilot competence......