This thread just gets better and better...
There are a lot of people here making some very bold and usually derogatory statements about different aircraft about which they clearly have very little knowledge or experience of. People should more careful about saying things like "in my experience..." when it's pretty clear that you actually have no experience whatsoever of what you think you're talking about!
Sadly the SDSR forced us to lose either the GR4 or the GR9; from the RAF's perspective I think the right decision was made, but from Defence's viewpoint the outcome was perhaps not so good. If we had similar numbers of GR4 and GR9 then the result might have been very different, but we will never know - it's just a shame that a decision to cut one of the fleets had to happen. It will be too politically embarrassing to reverse the decision, even though there are 79 serviceable jets sat in the hangars at Cott.
As an aside, the GR9 in the middle of an Afghan summer's day could get airborne from KAF in under 3000 ft with a full war load that was at least equal to the GR4's current payload and with better endurance. And it could just as easily have flown a 3000 mile round trip to drop some bombs on our favourite Colonel, albeit only if Libya had kicked off before 15 Dec 10. Sadly, the GR4 is now more capable than the RAF's soon-to-be-scrapped Harrier.