the only one I dislike outright is the R22 because it's incredibly ugly
Damn right, talking two seats G2 all day, so pretty and well designed, if you're a private owner maybe the initial cost is quite a lot, but in the long run you'll save money.. (I don't work for Cabri and never flown one)
For the autorotation it depends on many factors, high or low inertia of the main rotor, to put it in easy terms a "light" rotor system (R22) will have less momentum and slow down faster once power is gone, so less reaction time in the unlikely event of an engine failure.
Unlikely because autorotation is an important part of training but the likelihood of an engine failure is low.
Opposite for a high inertia "heavy' rotor system
Never flown a gyro so can't compare it
Learning is certainly not easy but not impossible, for sure day to day is a factor, if you fly once a week it's gonna take you a loooong time, if you'll make it at all.
Only the right hand is the one that needs to be on the cyclic 97 percent of the flight, in forward flight left hand and even feet can come off if you don't have to make power changes, bigger helicopters are more stable so you can be off the controls for short periods of time but I don't think it's your case
(this is just a general statement to give you an idea, once you become a pilot you'll know when you can take your hands off and when it's better to stay on ie: turbulence, high traffic, low visibility, ecc)
A 3h hour flight from a to b is not very "demanding" if you're a confident and somewhat experienced pilot.
Can actually get boring I find, helicopters were certainly not designed with straight and level flight in mind