I originally stopped by for the fic, but your meta intrigues me (not least of all because the Frank-Rimmer parallels had occurred to me before)

Aside from the army thing (which is a very good point), there's also the matter of the people they interact with. I think Frank might have turned out a lot better if he'd been bunking with Lister instead of Hawkeye.

Oh, and excellent fic <3