The chromatic hurdy-gurdy has been traditional for at least the last 300 years. Before that, yes, they were pretty much diatonic.

They are not particularly difficult to tune -- it just needs to be done, like any other instrument. Harps and hammered dulcimers both take longer to tune.

Bert, I'm not sure what you mean about the hurdy-gurdy being a poorly designed instrument. Since you've never played one, I'm not sure I'm willing to take your word for that. All the well-built ones that I have played on have seemed ingeniously designed to me. Since you are able to fix the design of instruments that have been evolving for 1000 years, perhaps you should come up with a guitar that has a B string that can be tuned accurately ;-)

John Peekstok