Thanks Nick, good info! KFC200 is another one I've never had any reason to go into, but King (or BendixKing) speaks for quality.
"Attitude-based" autopilots are indeed a little bit different story than the rate-based ones. It will also be an interesting new chapter in Accu-Sim. While someone who's come into simulator world down the food chain, starting from tubeliners for example, might find this a big improvement with no obvious tradeoffs, there are some solid downsides in this kind of systems as well, contributing to the prevalence of rate-based systems in GA world. These include the inherent loss of an IMC backup to the suction gyros: a rate-based autopilot driven by an electrical DG flies one out of the damp way better than most pilots do on a turn coordinator alone. An attitude-based autopilot being dependent on the attitude information from the vacuum-driven ADI gives off this backup. Further, being program-driven, they typically are a bit more clumsy to operate as visual flight 'cruise control'. No more smooth turn knobs, usually! They add much into the game, though. I might need to revise my old "Understanding autopilots" topics..
And as you mention, many are like this and completely integrated into flight director system. This is not always the case, there are systems where the flight director is independent of the autopilot. This might be a source of educational conduction like you say.
-Esa