Perhaps someone will help me here, but all this stuff (c**p) about 50s aircraft, and there unsuitability winds me up, as the Nimrod was built like a brick out house, and actually much better suited to low level operations over the sea, as it proved.
I know of a number of instances where the old girl reportedly was given as much credit for recovering from precarious situations, as the pilot was. KISS principle of aerodynamics may apply here. I certainly felt safe in her, even in some of the manoeuvres we got up to.
Some of these adaptations from commercial aircraft, would not last in these type of hostile environments?
Many of today's high bypass engines are not designed to be take the hammer that the Nimrod Spey's were subjected to. And as another poster has mentioned, high lift swept wings, are not the sort for this job?
In a spirit of moving on, the Japanese Kawasaki MPA, looks like the type of aircraft, and people we need to deal with, if we are ever to resurrect our LRMPA capability.