You're probably only looking at the latest/greatest 145 to compare it. Every other Airbus helicopter is a frustrating, user-unfriendly machine (not bad, just very frustrating from a pilot standpoint).
Offset tailrotor is may look ghetto but it's a proven design to almost be as quiet as a fenestron but have far superior controllability. It's used on the AH-6 and AH-64... make the tailrotor sound almost non-existent in forward flight (vs the screech/growl of a fenestront).
Would guess ANY helicopter pilot would take a T/R over a fenestron any day for those that have flown both. Fenestron has the 1-2 second delay sluggishness and takes more input (distance in the pedals) to have the same controllability).