But isn't that one of the main reasons why we went down the refurbished Nimrod route in the first place, as opposed to having twenty or so highly capable aircraft in-service a number of years ago?
That's not really so. The only other viable contender in the competition in the mid 90s was the Lockheed P7 which was eventually rejected by the USN & the whole project cancelled. Like the USN we would therefore still be waiting for the Boeing P-8A Poseidon. As the saying goes, 'caught between a rock & a hard place'.