"What was wrong with redistributing a bit of taxpayers money...."
Really needing a Chinook, but only having half a Merlin. How many lives may have been saved in recent campaigns if we'd had the additional 30+ Chinooks the Merlin Mk3 money would have bought......the RAF and Army agreed, just the Govt at the time didn't.
Mk1/2 is just a platform for the mission / weapon system and does a credible job at doing it.