Melchy,
I think we can just about get away with the thread drift onto senior appointments because the central charge from the Regiment NCOs seems to be one of supine senior leadership. I think you misunderstood my point about VCDS and MilCap posts: I'm not saying Wiggy would go to either (clearly, wrong rank for the second!) but that one of the other services, and the RN is an obvious candidate for the reasons you mention, might take the view that supporting Wiggy for CDS would be a good exchange for securing its preferred candidate in one of the aforementioned posts. Rich Knighton's successor has, I understand, been named internally, but it'll be his/her successor that gets the crucial "SDSR25" gig...