I don't doubt there were all sorts of political machinations going on from all parties involved, but I know at the time I was involved in the battlefield helicopter caper ('84 onward) we (RAAF) were working pretty hard to do the best job possible for the ground troops, and the tasking system couldn't have been much more direct, ie air cell in an 11x11 (physically) attached to the brigade or battalion commander's HQ setup.
There's not much point in dredging it all up again anyway, I guess, but we were doing about as much as you could with a limited number of helicopters and hours (which didn't change with the service transfer, except to take a temporary slide in the downward direction) and a number of users all wanting them at once.
I transferred services myself for a few years and there was basically no change tasking-wise, so it was hard to see where the benefit lay at the time when weighed up against the costs.
But I digress - the discussion was about fixed-wing, so best I pull my head in now.