"Stretched" or "Overstretched"
Yes, it seems like a lot of people are really bitter, twisted and downright nasty on these pages!
To answer your original question global military technology is moving ahead in leaps and bounds, and the RAF is at a crippling financial disadvantage against the major players, USA, China and even Putin's New Russia. That is a painful posture to sell to voters, and so politicians keep on making commitments as if the UK had the resources of yesteryear.
For example, on the emotive Nimrod thread one could ask "Why was a old Maritime aircraft used to replace a satellite and drone, when the maritime threat is growing worldwide?" Instead we saw hundreds of posts that must make the Chinese, Russians and Al Qaeda think we have all gone soft!
The military force of the future will bear little resemblance to what we see today, and maybe the planners in MoD know that. Maybe they decided to use old, even unsafe technology, because they don't have the budget from their political masters to afford the latest technology better suited to the mission and the geography. Maybe they see the inevitable privatization of the military, and a quantum leap in technology in the near future.
Despite the sarcastic comments earlier on this thread I predict servicing will be sub contracted to someone like Branson, as will many other traditional support functions. The UK will become even more reliant on the US defence contractors thanks to Tony Blair, and in the future the UK Welfare State will not have to worry about spending money on developing new military hardware, and can give it to the retiring Baby Boomers from across Europe.
The phrase that comes to mind when defining the RAF's role in the modern world is "Unrealistic Expectations". The RAF is "overstretched" to play a role in the Superpower Sandpit, but is only "stretched' in a support role to the US military, which is itself "stretched" and that should put the global scenario into perspective. The real cost of invading Iraq has not been released in the mass media, and when the invoice is due then forget having anything but funding for essentials.
The US military is facing massive funding cutbacks over the next 10 years and the RAF will have the same painful lack of funding. That is political reality, if you don't like it run for Parliament. There just isn't the funds to do all the niceties demanded on these threads.