Icare9, your point partly answers Coochycool's question. In short, the US Army undertakes a lot of the work the UK asks Boeing/industry to do. One would expect their price to be very much lower. In 1992 the RAF Director of Flight Safety warned the Chief Engineer and ACAS of the effect of Boeing having no experience of being an 'offshore' Design Authority. Trying to contract Boeing in the same way we do (e.g.) Westland is a disaster waiting to happen. Hence, the root of many of the Mk3 problems.
Coochycool, your can is open. It was known immediately in 1994 that Mk2 was not airworthy and flying under a rogue RTS. This forced HQ, for once, to listen to Boscombe; who simply repeated what they'd said in 1987 after ZA721. If you keep on doing it this way, you can never get certification. Mk2 was first certified in January 1996, albeit with major limitations. By 1998 most of the biggies had been cleared.