I've though that the original Project Wing design (flying wing that transitions 90 degrees for vertical hover) would have been more efficient. Or a larger version of the E-flite X-Vert VTOL:
I suspect they're still headed that way long term, and just went with this design to get testing ASAP because the pusher configuration has more challenges.
The flip maneuver is difficult to integrate with their sky crane style system. You absolutely don't want to tilt your payload because that ruins lots of foods (coffee, pizza) so you either need some sort of pivot mechanism for your payload attachment smack dab in the middle of the craft, or you have to do some daring aerobatics to finish retracting the crane as you begin low speed level flight.
Their noise problem is almost entirely because of those tiny propellers - A pusher wing with a pair of much larger (10+"), slower props could be pretty quiet.
You are semi-correct. The tail sitter design was abandoned because it was too difficult/unstable to control while using the winch.
The core team that started Wing quit X awhile back and formed a new company, Skydio, which has built an incredibly cool drone for the purpose of high-tech narcissism:
I've though that the original Project Wing design (flying wing that transitions 90 degrees for vertical hover) would have been more efficient. Or a larger version of the E-flite X-Vert VTOL:
https://www.horizonhobby.com/x-vert-vtol-bnf-basic-efl1850?g...