ABIW,
No malice intended but a little more positivity on your part would better endear you to me! 30 years? Get some time in, old chap!
Actually, I have been involved in "how the RAF buys things" and at greater cost to the public purse than a few paperback books - billion pound projects to be precise (not Typhoon, MRA4 or even Nimrod AEW - before the flack rolls in), but hey ho! That was then and this is now. 40 to 50 thousand copies? A bulk order? Probably cost less than £1 each to produce through HMSO who published it.
Perhaps the answer to why AP3003 has been issued to all lies in the article on Page 6, Column 1 of the latest RAF News (21 Jan 05).