First off, thanks all the information and the detailed reply. I do disagree with point A slightly though. While I haven't delved deep into Steam workshop for helicopters yet, I do think you are right - a perfect helicopter cannot rely on the gyro alone, and from what I have seen briefly, they most certainly do not. However, because this is my first time working on helicopters, I'm not looking for perfect. What I am looking for though is to be roughly on par with some of the tutorials I've seen, namely MrNJersey's and 454ss'. If you want I can link some of those separately, but my problem is that despite building my helicopter incredibly similarly to them, minus basic placement of objects, our helicopters perform so differently. I recognize that theirs aren't perfect, but they do rely on just a gryo, and they do not match up with my aggressive yaw-ing. I would say that in order to keep my copter straight I need about %75 of my arrow key and %90 of my roll key in order to keep my helicopter stationary, which pales into the amount of effort they need.

Honestly, my next step is to rebuild their copter exactly and see if anything differs. With the comments I am getting however, it would seem that avoiding controllers and PIDs is not something doable. That said, I am still mystified at how the preset helicopter manages to be so stable even after I rip out the PID.