This is the main concern I have regarding the centralisation of
techs.By cutting down the pool of NSF techs, and forcing the
regulars to adopt a dual-role job scope, we are dealing with a
future SAF that has very little deployable techs in ops.
Note that privatisation has been really implemented at a faster
rate than I had thought would happen.The CMAT concept, is
supposedly one that allows for rapid deployment of a cross-trained
tech squad from a central workshop, however, this means that there
won't be any organic tech force within a single unit in time of
ops.
And surely we cannot rely on contractors to support us in ops
because like what you have said, they are ironically,
non-technician trained reservists.There is a vacuum here that needs
to be fixed.
The new idea of having technicians go for leadership training is
sound, but that might impact on their technical knowledge which is
not something gained overnight like combat related skills.Like it
or not, the army technician deals with the private sector much more
than your average combatant, and he knows how and why things work
, and I feel that we are in a no-win situation
now.
As for the narrowminded superiors, I've not met much, but in the
course of work(I was in LMIS), there were many who fail to
understand the big picture of system maintenance and would often
want to seek short-cuts for problems, and eventually cause a larger
mess, which us sys admins would be blamed. 
