When I suggested to a stn cdr a while ago that he had hardly been in post anytime at all, he told me that after a 'single cycle' (a year or so) he was liable to move on as there were so few stn cdr slots and lots of budding gp capts who needed to prove themselves.
This accords with the realisation I had around half way through my time in the RAF, that the purpose of the organisation was not the delivery of air power but it existed to give its personnel (at least the senior ones) a ‘good career’. If the RAF was able to drop a bomb or deliver a load along the way that was a bonus but not the core task.