I had picked up the bigger wheel at a swap meet, just to try it out. Steering was better when seated on either combing, but stepping up n down to get back to the helm station was inconvenient...
Similar journey, but different waystation.... at least so far.
I picked up a 42" wheel second-hand, swapped it out for the OEM 36" wheel, and love it. In particular, love that it lets me get a little bit outboard when driving, and the little amount of extra leverage makes an already smooth helm fingertip sensitive. Bonus points that it brings the rim just a little bit higher which (I find) is more comfortable when standing (e.g., docking). For sailing, I give it an unequivocal thumbs-up.
Is it a pain to get back and forth around the edge of the wheel? Yeah, a little, I mean it's only 3" wider on each side, and it was already a bit of a scootch to get around the 36" wheel, but yes.
I've mitigated that - for me - in two ways.
One, I've set up my sail controls so I can do most sailing things (mainsheet, vang, jibsheets, furling) from behind the wheel. So, when I'm sailing I only need to come out from behind the wheel when setting or striking sails. Conversely, if I'm motoring along to a destination, I'm almost never behind the wheel - I set the autopilot and go. I spend much of that time - between keeping an eye on course and traffic - puttering around the cockpit doing little things that need doing (reminds me, I need to re-whip the tail of my main halyard...)
And, two, it takes maybe 10 seconds to take the wheel off. Un-do the nut, un-do the wire connector. I don't do it very often but, (e.g.) if entertaining a group of friends at the dock, it's easy to take the wheel off, bungie it to the shrouds or something, and it opens up the whole area nicely.
_/)_