Truckkie,
As far as I know, there's nothing to fill the role, hence the A400M was born in the first place.
I believe LM are looking into a fatter-albert, but that is even further away than the A400M is.
C17 is a good strat AT, but too big for the smaller partner nations who only ordered 1 or 2 aircraft. ~(South Africa, Belgium etc), also not suited to the majority of Euro tac work due to its size.
I agree it would be daft to cancel it, but then again, since when has anyone in power listened to the coalface.
If anyone can remember the start of the C17 project, that was nealry cancelled a few times, and only after massive investment did it work.
Hopefully the partners involved here will bite the bullet and finish what was started.