TBSG: "The reason BLUH fell apart is that OA proved that small helicopters should not "do" lift as it is not cost-effective. Hence the need for a small,agile, recce helicopter."
Que?
The reason the OA is not up to it is because BLUH was scrubbed and replaced by BRH. The requirement for quite a few multi-role, light utility cabs is pretty much proven; that for as many pure recce cabs less so. The BLUH OA was just about OK against the BLUH URD. The BRH OA is a little less robust.
UAVs will do the job, but not yet. Current research (joint UK/US) shows that the required level of autonomous capability, primarily to provide effective decision making in a high threat environment for survival, won't really be available until about 2020.
I was told (by someone authoritative who knows) that the estimated time on task for a current generation UAV, operating in the worst case BRH environement, was about 30 seconds (time until it got shot down). A manned BRH survives better thanks to the capablility of the collective mass of AAC little grey cells in the front.