It comes down to the tilt of the hand with the joystick, versus the movement of the hand with the PVC pipe, as well as hand position with palm down and the fingers on top being more comfortable.
With a real helicopter, the cyclic is at the end of a pole, so there is sideways and forward movement. With very small movements required at times, on the T piece you replicate that. At more extremes it has more of an arc than the real cyclic as seen in VR.
I also find it creates a better mental map, such as when taking off, the forward and to the left movement of cyclic is just that, as opposed to the tilting of the joystick.
I did an into flight in a R44 and held the cyclic with my hand upside down and fingertips holding the bottom. There were only slight movements required.