The reason why most of the RN didn't appreciate you was because most of the RN had nothing to do with you.
When you did a join you probably only talked to the PWO, and maybe the TPS for Link, and to all intents and purposes things just happened. Your average chef or stoker would have had no idea what the MPA was doing, or indeed that you were there.
Your operations with 848 and 815 Sqns are unlikely to be talked about, and anything regarding the deterrent only ever results in hyperbole.
Rest assured though, the operational planners and their bosses were hoping that MRA4 could be kept, but at the end of the day it was an RAF submission in the SDSR. Perhaps the only way we could've kept them was to transfer you to the FAA.....