I'd like to know the reasons behind the downvotes on this.
They make no sense.

Are you downvoting it because I play with a 360-pad or is it something else about my personality you don't like?

Because I have a hard time seeing why you wouldn't want the OPTION of a setting that makes things more intuitive. With emphasis on OPTION.

There is no one single "neutral" position for collective input. The whole purpose of a collective control is to set it to different positions during different speeds and helicopter pitch. For example, if you set the collective at 20 percent, at one speed and pitch, the helicopter won't gain or lose altitude. But at different speeds and pitches, the helicopter will gain or lose altitude if that collective is kept at 20%. The collective is never really in one place throughout the whole flight. It's meant to be used to counter the inputs of the cyclic.

I would suggest that you continue to use the standard flight model or choose a different input/controller for the collective that will work better.

There is though. 50% of collective should=neutral.
It does not matter if things change in flight as that can be adjusted for with some wiggling.. the main issue I'm having is that you cannot use your wigglesticks to control collective in an intuitive way -- That is to have the throttle return to 50% or neutral lift as you release your stick in order to correspond with the neutral axis of the stick. It lets you know where it is without looking.

That way you don't have to constantly keep check on "how much is my throttle!?" during critical moments, you can just feel by the way you're moving if you're vectoring up or down too fast and adjust accordingly.

If you use a HOTAS setup or have a throttle device that doesn't reset to a neutral position automaticly you will not suffer this issue because you can feel where along the axis your throttle is. For Mouse and keyboard pilots there isn't much help to begin with.

I feel that analog pad users are crippled as it stands right now, and they don't have to be.

I feel that this is CRITICAL for anyone that flies with a 360pad or similar.

When you're seasoned enough you DO stop looking at your gauges much and fly "by the seat of your pants" so to speak, gauges are essentially a learning tool for how the aircraft handles.

I'd like you to consider that I want this to be an OPTION, not a replacement.

I would also ask you to consider how on earth this would decrease YOUR enjoyment of the game in any way, shape or form since you have the OPTION OF NOT BEING AFFECTED by it.
Does it bother you that other people have a nicer flying experience? Are you a jealous pilot? Is good piloting a prestige thing for you? Do you feel that your pride has been hurt if you accidentally crash?

Shouldn't be that way. Not at all.

I guess that's a "fuck you, we don't want you to be able to interface with the game".

No, that's a "don't try to control a helicopter with an apple". If you want advanced flight model, buy a joystick.

I would be affected by this if development time is spent on this and not other, in my opinion more useful, features.

Goblinbutt the problem is not your Controller its not even this collective raise. The Problem is that this is the ADVANCED flight model, that was made to be realistic. When flying a helicopter there are many factors for what 50% collective raise will do: -height -speed -angle -etc. It is really difficult to fly a heli. So if you want your feature play Standart model else try to figure out how you need to use the Throttel.