Good thinking, it could well work to at least reduce the kick a bit. The tail will tend to kick (tail left, nose right) when you hit hold because the torque comes off the main rotor so the tail doesn't need to apply counter torque anymore (but you probably figured that already). If you used heading hold it would be much less noticable. I fly in heading hold and I usually land by doing mini autos, the kick is not noticable most of the time.
I've never tried flying in rate mode, why do you prefer it?