In 1997 all we had were a couple of aircraft in Kosovo, and NI was still going strong.
Now we are fighting 2 foreign wars and need all the helicopters we can get. There appears to be, finally, the realisation higher up the chain that the Pumas really are now obsolete, that they cannot continue (for a variety of reasons) in their current form past 2012, that the lack of SH lift is such a political hot potato at the moment, and that we cannot afford to lose the capability they bring (small though it is when compared to the chinook fleet) but they need replacing. A new platform is, however, utterly unaffordable right now.
Also, when the question was asked 10 years ago, was the upgraded gearbox and transmission included in the spec, because that added massively to the cost? That is not in the picture this time.