Ewan,
I would venture that there is little training value to be had in doing something once, all flying tasks are perishable skills, if not practiced on a regular basis their degree of difficulty returns to the TFD category. If it was so worthwhile why did KC-10 Driver tell us it was binned 15 or more years ago? If you need to be doing that sort of manoeuvre to get gas in a battle zone then is it because the tanker is bust or the reciever is bust? Nope don't believe that is a valid reason
SASless
Not a familiar refrain. More a case of asking the question "is what we are doing safe/valuable/worthwhile, does it have relavance". I've flown with USAF, USN and RAF and of the 3 the USN have the most relaxed approach to sticking to the rules, closely followed by the RAF and a long way behind is the USAF who are incredibly well disciplined and regulation bound. We regularly flew illegal formation aeros in the Hawk for the studes who were doing better at it - confidence building and related to getting the leans in cloud - fly the references irrespective of what your head tells you or what the leader (trust) is doing.
Regards
Tarnished