I don't quite get what you mean by the fleet reduction for Sv
23.. so you mean that if 9481L is perm for 23, there shld be an
extra bus out of 23 somewhere? or did i misinterprete your
point? 
9579P been doing 81 for the past few days since the past weekend
though..
If you look when 9624S was gone from sv23, sgwiki edited that
9666X was replacing 9624 for 23/10e. Then also it was edited after
that to be reduced to 15 buses. Then where did the missing bus go
to? That bus should be 9481L that you mentioned here.
So to cut things short, 9481L might have gone to do 9666X normal
slots or something there.
You can see here.
http://sgwiki.com/index.php?title=Services_21_-_40&diff=239251&oldid=239250