Let’s hear from the pilots  

judging By your attitude, you made the right decision to leave the utility world as you would have gotten run out anyways by the sounds of it. Some of those "Exploits Deleted" lineman you speak of, are great guys, and truely do know a lot about their trade. Maybe you just tried to swerve into their lane. Most of the foreman who deal with helicopters know a bit about it since they work with many different contractors, so they get to see the world from all sides of company policies and pilot excuses as to why why are doing what they're doing. You forget.....you're working for them....they don't work for you. You make a lot of assumptions but all I hear is you were disgruntled and projected all your problems on things that were the companies fault and not your own. Which is comical as all you had to do was not fly broken stuff. Pretty simple. If you were worth your weight then they would have recognized that and helped you out as well. 

crazy for doing this so long? I don't think so. I've enjoyed my career, and have made great friends and relationships along the way. It's no more dangerous than anyhting else flying if you keep your skills sharp. Statistically speaking all the EMS crowd has a significantly higher accident rate Doing far less demanding stick wiggling. That's not a shot, that's just the truth.

flying is as safe as you make it, but after 38,000 hrs in the spiders web, I still enjoy each day. YMMV.