I don't doubt the professionalism of the RW force at all - far from it. But Bliar's military adventurism in both GW2 and the north-west frontier has resulted in a sandaholic focus at the expense of far too many other areas of military flying - which is why you're there. There are now TriStar pilots who have only ever landed at 3 aerodromes in their whole tour - and who have never even flown one NAT track. The RAF has lost the MPA role, strategic bombing vanished years ago, as did strategic reconaissance - even training is being farmed out to contractors.
By definition, 'expeditionary' warfare is the direct result of failed government policy. The fact that the RAF then has to cope with the fall-out of such a policy is simply a legacy of the military 'can do' attitude.
When the UK has finally pulled out of the north-west frontier, the realisation that the whole RAF force structure is unbalanced will probably come as a shock. What will you do with all those Chinooks, for example, when there is no more north-west frontier operation to support? I suspect that there will be a lot of cuts to the RW world at that time.
The RAF will continue to attract some, but increasing competition from other areas of aviation will become a significant factor. Which 10 years of holding postings and being dicked around pre-OCU will hardly lessen.
(And less of the trucky, thank you very much - I only did a couple of years of that once the AAR role had become 'AT/AAR'
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