Helicopter Controls: They are okay, I haven't found them significantly worse than previous BF games. I don't recall their exact status on release day, but flying with the present patch seems fine. If this sounds vague, sorry, I can fly anything in any BF game without much trouble, but I'm no ace pilot.
Bots Fixed? : How fixed do you want them to be; you can play solo matches and not be too bored, the bots are definitely not anywhere close to being the best bots in any game though. Pretty weak AI overall, but they will cap flags, use vehicles, etc. I have even seen them reviving teammates (on the enemy team, enemy AI reviving enemy AI) The friendly bot coding will preserve your vehicle(tanks etc.) if you get out to do something at a flag, it'll drive around nearby and defend itself. Pretty impressive sometimes, not so impressive other times, in terms of quality up close infantry fighting. The BF2042 bots are good enough for people to play a bit and get used to the vehicles and guns, etc. I don't see them as a long term replacement for live players and servers. Although you can play vs bots and unlock things. Higher level difficulty bots just get better aim, their movement as infantry especially remains the same. Strangely enough the bots can sometimes give the illusion of being pretty good in some vehicles, but mostly they will get stomped by any experienced FPS player.
There has to be a tradeoff to running 63(or 31?) instances of bot code, on these maps with these vehicles, vs the super bots of the Quake DM days.