I checked in at Pensacola wanting to be a Cobra guy. We had a really great instructor for the CAS/9-Line stuff at TBS, and at the time all I wanted to do was fly a grey aircraft at treetop level launching Hellfires at bad guys. This remained my goal going into Primary, but after talking to IPs who came from the skid community, within a few months I found it may not necessarily be what I wanted in terms of the people and the culture. I pretty much completely wrote off helicopters once I was well into Instruments and realized I enjoyed that sort of flying far more than the VFR stuff. After talking to a couple C-130 IPs, I was pretty dead set on Hercs around the time selection rolled around. I will freely admit that as cool as being a Marine officer and aviator has been, my ultimate goal is the airlines, and that may have had something to do with it, too.
I selected my 2nd choice of MV-22s. I was a little bummed, but I don't think there were even any C-130 slots my week, and the dread was more about spending any amount of time in the TH-57 as opposed to being Tilt drafted. Fast-forward to Intermediate, and the TH-57 was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Tactics, with the CALs, pinnacles, and steep approaches, was honestly some of the most fun I'd had in flight school up to that point aside from Cruise/Tail Chase during T-6 Forms. I think I would have torn my hair out trying to get an instrument rating in that thing, though. I still consider myself more of a fixed-wing pilot at heart.
Advanced Multi-Engine was definitely the best phase for me, both when it came to enjoying the flying and the overall culture of VT-35 where there were actually V-22 instructors sprinkled throughout the P-3 and C-130 types. Not like the HTs where there were just a bunch of CH-53 pilots who thought they had room to talk shit about the V-22 as if they'd flown it.
In retrospect, I would have put V-22s #1. It's a great aircraft, great community, and a solid mix of every sort of flying. Expanding on that last point - it is not at all uncommon for a single flight to consist of IFR coupled to the autopilot, a low-level route in Airplane mode, Conversion/VTOL approaches to an LZ, and just flat-out VFR. The V-22, both as an aircraft and a community, have worked out nearly all the kinks and growing pains. Tiltrotors in general definitely seem to make up much of the future of vertical lift aviation since few would want to pass up the sheer speed and range we bring to the table compared to conventional helicopters.