Lots of issues here, some of which are more complex than they might first appear.

First off, the obligatory disclaimers that none of us were there, most of us are probably not familiar with that terrain or conditions on the ground, and press accounts usually get parts of the story wrong. But we can all probably agree that the individual shouldn't have become lost in the first place. And his buddy certainly should not have gone off searching by himself and also become lost.

Launching the mission was probably appropriate. He called in at 02:30 AM and was lost. Current SAR training is to treat searches as an emergency until proven otherwise. Given the lack of info in most cases, it is very difficult to decide who is really in serious trouble, and who isn't. So you treat all missions as serious. Yes you will often go out to find people who aren't really in all that much danger. But if you try to get too clever, sooner or later someone will die, someone you could easily have saved had you taken the initial report more seriously.

In a search like that, in that sort of terrain, a helicopter is a great tool. If even an ordinary basic helo is available, any IC with half a brain would ask for it. You can cover a lot of ground looking, drop ground pounders into strategic spots, evacuate injured people quickly, etc.

I do have serious issues with winching the guy out. Using a helo in any fashion adds some risk to mission. Statistics show that aviation accidents are one of the leading causes of death and injuries in SAR missions. Winching someone out significantly increases the danger. Since the guy wasn't injured, I would have to ask if it wouldn't have been safer to feed and hydrate him, then walk him out to a road?

Helicopters are expensive but they are wonderfully versatile tools, and there are good reasons why law enforcement, parks, and other agencies go the expense of having one available. Maintaining a winch capability is significantly more expensive. To do winch evolutions with any reasonable degree of safety requires not just the extra equipment, but extensive and constant training for all involved. That being said, in some situations a helicopter with a winch is the only tool that can do the job. When you need it, you need it really bad!!

Once a helo (with a winch) was on scene, lifting the guy out probably added little if any additional cost. As noted above, the up front expense of merely having that capability available is where the cost is. When a county has gone to the expense of building this capability, it is likely that higher ups are going to ask if they are getting their moneys worth? They might ask "....OK, so how many people have you actually saved this year with that winch?" This in turn might lead to a subtle pressure on the SAR team to use it, even if it might not be the safest or most appropriate tool in a given situation. And of course when you've put in all that effort at training with a tool, there is certainly a desire to actually use it. These are the sorts of things that can lead to good people making bad decisions.

Here in Alaska, the only winch capability is with the military. The Alaska State Troopers have a number of helos, but if a winch is required, we have to call on either the Coast Guard or the PJs. While this sometimes means that it takes longer to get a winch capable helo, it tends to cut down on the number of questionable winch missions. The NPS does "short haul" rescues on Denali, but that is a very different thing. And the NPS only does a short haul after carefully evaluating all other options.

Regarding paying for rescue, as Teslinhiker notes, in N America most SAR agencies don't believe people should be charged, except perhaps in the most egregious cases. One concern is that if people are afraid of being billed for a rescue, they won't call for help until they are in the most desperate situations. By delaying because of fear of cost, what could have been a relatively simple rescue can become a very complex and dangerous mission. So we encourage people to carry cell phones, PLBs, etc. I worry that this sometimes tends to discourage people from self rescue. People who might have been able to walk out decide to follow the advice of people like us here on ETS. How many threads haven't we had where the consensus was "...he should have carried a PLB!"

The law of unintended consequences!