I don't know, I personally didn't find heli's any harder to learn than a plane. It's just different. Put some training gear on a .30+ size nitro heli and hop around the ground at your own pace. Pretty soon your doing fast forward flight.

And an unpowered heli is not a "rock". Autos are not that difficult to do (I just make them look that way). A skilled heli pilot can do all kinds of crazy manuevers while autorotating - inverted, rolls, piro's, etc.

One advantage that I really liked about the helis is that you don't need a lot of wood working tools/skills. Grab your screw drivers and hex wrenches and your gone!

I agree with the sim idea. Get a good one and try them out yourself. Also find a good club so that you can see what is available.