Twon, as far as the Army being the 'lead' service, I think this is just another bit of poor journalism. I think it would be fairer to say that the Army is the 'supported' service in Afghanistan whilst the RAF and RN and the 'supporting' services. In my view, that would be more accurate, because there are plenty of areas of Defence where the Army are most definitely not the lead service.
However, what is vaguely worrying is the sheer number of Brown Jobs occupying the top seats in Defence. Off the top of my head, and CGS aside, CDS, VCDS and Chief of Defence Materiel are all held by Army personnel. Assuming that the RAF and RN get royally mugged by the Army in the coming SDSR, one does have to ask how much of that mugging was down to the fact that the Army occupied a disproportionate amount of senior seats in a supposedly Joint environment?