Andrewn,
Regarding is DHFS broke, not fit for purpose, or prohibitively expensive I am sure that was clearly articulated in the requirement and supporting staff work that initiated MFTS
I personally believe that you are extremely brave in suggesting that boots on ground and/or the requirement for tactical battlefield lift will not require the levels of CH47s that we currently have, even as a contingency/capability that rarely gets used the ability to rapidly deploy/operate in Eastern Europe through to large scale NEOs/Disaster Reliefs I would suggest it is one of those multi-spectrum capabilities that are worth the insurance premiums. Apologies if I sound defensive or protective of my own kin, I am not.
As to Middle Wallop as our 'super base', I am sure the AAC (and even our airships) will have all their ducks in a row and suitable accounting spreadsheets as to why not. The only factor that might change for this SDSR is that the AAC is ultimately Army, and Army winces at the budget costs of JHC and things RW especially as now the intrinsic Afghan and Iraq requirement for RW has been lost in corporate memory already. Army may just tell AAC to ship out to Wattisham, which may result in your idea of using under utilised real estate and facilities at Middle Wallop and Boscombe being realised. All to enable the sale of what I believe (due to proximity of London) of the more lucrative Benson and Odiham.
But is all this change really going to save money or be cost neutral though and (admittedly a secondary consideration in the current environment) will it reduce operational capability