Not a pilot so pinch of salt. Ive got thousands of hours in DCS Mi-8 and Ive got all the muscle memory for staying out of VRS downpat, and I thought Id throw something in that hasnt been mentioned specifically. VRS in the hip is the only part of the flight where you have to react to something before it happens, as opposed to getting a true warning or indication to respond before or as it happens, which I think is why it probably claims so many victims. When you start to learn the approach the first lesson the DCS Mi-8 teaches you is as you approach lower ETL limit you add twice as much collective as you think you need, then you double it, and then you wait to see what effect that had a second later as the VRS hands grabs you and tries to pull you out the sky. As is pointed out, its hard at first but it quickly becomes part of muscle memory and you crown yourself king of VRS.
My point here (if you can call it one), is the VRS fight always felt a bit out of place compared to the rest of the flight, again, the rest of the time you are responding to what the aircraft is doing after it does it, but VRS is a completely separate entity that has to be entirely pre-empted on every approach. You fly your response against VRS about a full second or two before it 'activates' because it seems to behave as a pre-programmed stumbling block, an obstacle in the road that must be driven around every single time, rather than a dynamically created event dependent on conditions. (This also helps to create muscle memory however, as right now VRS acts in the same way each and every time).
I completely agree with the hip being an uncertifiable deathtrap if it was like this realistically, I just wonder if the real reason for this type of modeling is possibly more to do with controlling sim pilots to look realistic rather than create an entirely realistic module. Sim pilots are a pretty enthusiastic and inventive fan base at the best of times, and will generally behave in an unrealistic manner (namely pushing the aircraft far beyond its safe limits) on a regular basis, and when you watch a track replay of such flying, it looks terrible and some arcadey arma type game. Such greatly magnified pre-set roadblocks like the hip VRS may simply be there to try to rebalance the realism lost to pilots who quite happily wreck the engine and transmission of a brand new helicopter every flight. So in other words the VRS on steroids is a poor mans substitute to a crew chief asking wtf have you done to my helicopter? I think if we had any kind of wear and tear modelling, plus somehow persistent aircraft, you would then be able to remove the magnified VRS and people would still fly fairly realistically looking due to preserving and not stressing the airframe, but without that kind of concern then pre-programmed stumbling blocks was the best they could manage to try and get sim pilots to fly in a semi-realistic fashion.
Sorry, rambling and kinda forgot where I was going with this, but while I definitely agree with VRS being modeled bizarrely, I think there might be an ulterior motive behind it, simply because real life values didnt look real when in the simulator when flown by non pilots in a non-realistic way. (Ironic).