Main, I don't dispute that Bristol had the expertise just the move from the ridiculous to the sublime seemed the ambitions of many aircraft manufacturers. At least Shorts built solid aircraft from Sunderland onwards to the Skyvan, though even they got a bit of modern R&D with the SC1C. Then there was the HP 115.
The common thread appears to be the MoS farming out contracts even handset across industry which was possibly wasteful and led to BAC and HS and ultimately to BAE.