Just figured I'd post a follow up. I flew 1.5 hrs with Mark Sprigg in an M24 a few days ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The M24 is an amazing gyroplane, and you couldn't hope for a better instructor than Mark.
We got sort of lucky with the weather, because it was marginal VFR due to ceilings, and it was also pretty windy. The weather didn't bother us, but it did keep a lot of the other traffic on the ground. I got a chance to make about 8 direct crosswind landings at Fairhope with wind gusting up to 20 mph. It was all very comfortable, and a lot of that probably was due to the M24.
Thanks for the recommendation and comments.
Rusty