Jess,
If I misread your post, my apologies...I endorse your second post completely. We maintain an entire airborne division....and with some exceptions they have done permissive drops when mass jumps are done. The other view of this...is we keep a Brigade sized Airborne unit on alert all the time so that we do have a very quick reaction force should that need arise. Granted they are light infantry but what an impressive rabble they can be when turned loose.
I am a strong supporter of a large conventional army....it takes boots on the ground to secure large areas....as we see everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is a mission the SF forces are not designed to do.
We too misuse our SOG guys....for example...the Panama Airport attack where our SEALs got their butt kicked due to their being mis-used. During WWII, our Ranger untis got eaten up in the Italian campaign when they were used as standard infantry. Left to do what they did best....they were very effective.
I agree that funding must be sufficient for both conventional and non-conventional forces....otherwise the system breaks down....it takes both types of units in a large campaign.