Oh I know, I remember seeing the rollout ceremony news story and reading the articles and interviews in AFM. It was to replaces the Commando Sea Kings (the famous "Junglies"). But everything is relative and it sounds a lot nicer to someone that wasn't aware of it than: "Have you been living under a rock? Didn't you know that the RAF ditched those things years ago?"
From what I read, the RN was happy to get more Merlins since they wouldn't have it in the budget to get them new via normal means and the Sea Kings were getting very, very old. And, while the RAF appreciated their capabilities, they were often seen as having the acquisition cost and maintenance burden of a Chinook but without the performance to justify it all. Most in the RAF would rather just have more Chinooks as I understood it.