Heartbreaking pics earlier of nearly complete airframes being readied for scrapping! Being one of the unwashed I must admit I'm more inclined to believe SFO's posts than anything that the torypress prints; however I still think a good few 100 millions extra would have been required to complete these aircraft (to a RTS standard).
Regards the capability itself then I guess this was a major part of the problem in that a 'gold plated' solution costs big bucks and that's something that we don't currently have...
Not sure that today's oil rig events really prove anything either way in this instance as the available assets appear to have proved sufficient and, in a way, validate the risk assessment that MoD/HMG undertook prior to formally cancelling MRA4. I guess you could say we were "lucky" that a Sentry was airborne on a Friday afternoon, or you could assume that it's role was non-essential and that the outcome would have been the same regardless?
Personally I think there's been too much attention focussed on the headline grabbing role of SAR and that the real capability loss is in offshore surveillance (friend or foe) and I'd hope that this chasm will be filled sooner rather than later.