My opinion and take it for what it’s worth...A pilot house with inside steering is nice for the PNW during inclement weather..However, you can’t sail from inside. At least very effectively..From the cockpit, looking fwd in good weather, you have to look over the house. Deck access could be difficult. A lot of sailors like them as when down below, you are still looking outside instead of being inside a hull. With a “conventional” layout, you can install a dodger such that you can get out of weather and breaking water under power. I can stand in the companionway and drive the boat under autopilot with a remote. I could also enclose the cockpit if I want. When things are “favorable”, fouly up and get wet and sail! And a pilot house has more windage...It all comes down to what kind of sailing you want to do..
You definitely can sail from inside. If you go a knot slower , I'd rather do that for a bit longer ,than freezing and wet at a knot faster. My wheelhouse gives me far more floor space aft , allowing more flexibility in interiors ,and less distance to climb down from the cockpit in rough weather, a big safety factor.
Much easier deck access.
Comparing a dodger to a wheelhouse is like comparing a lean to to a hotel room, in terms of comfort.
Dodgers have the same windage as a wheelhouse, if the wheelhouse is kept small, and less that a wet crew in the cockpit. Most dodgers fog up, and are hard to see thru, and just as hard to see over ,more so than a small wheelhouse.
Leaving one's the only option , steering from the torture chamber of an open cockpit in bad weather ,is the logic equivalent of a pickup truck which can only be steered from the open box .
As I cruise the BC coast full time year round, I'm embarassed that it took me so long to build myself a boat with a proper wheelhouse . Now I can go anywhere along the BC coast in the dead of winter in aT shirt , the wood stove roaring , only going on deck briefly ,to wave at someone in a very expensive ,but 'Stylish " boat , freezing, and wet in their "stylish" open cockpit, huddling vainly under a dodger .
Hard to get washed out of a wheelhouse, in rough weather. Hypothermia and discomfort cloud judgement, bad seamanship.One can steer for many hours in a car , in comfort, but the same would leave you feeling wrecked in an open cockpit in bad weather. There is no logical justification for this, whatsoever.