The procurement strategy was indeed the biggest issue. The aircraft was almost incidental. Boeing had screwed up and let us down so often, particularly on QC failures, but Government and senior staffs were in thrall to them and would do anything to avoid criticism.
It is a good question though - how would Bell have behaved/coped. Would they have tried to flog us obsolescent avionics? That was spotted by the Directorate's Sea King PM, because Apache was meant to be completely "off the shelf", so was set up as a commercial job with no technical specialists to spot this attempt at, what could be construed as, fraud.
What if Bell had been contracted to build all 67? Would they, like Westland, have told MoD to **** off when asked to halve the production rate, put cabs in storage instead of delivering to the Army, and take the hit for the delay when the press found out? (Forced by the conscious delay in the ISD when placing a PFI simulator contract. A simple A5 memo and it would have been in service years earlier. On the same day, SK7 and Apache had to decide on PFI'ing their Trainer. SK went the other way and delivered on time. Had they obeyed orders it would have been at least 5 years late).
Too many ifs. The Army got a decent aircraft, eventually. Be thankful they didn't "do a Chinook Mk3".