[nickff]

>Like, a week in service per day of flight time.

When you read hours of maintenance per flight hour, you should remember that much of the maintenance is done on parts which are being rebuilt off the airframe.

>Now you're doing a lot more operations, on less-reliable intel, and the risk of cock-ups rises significantly.

Please provide a citation for this claim, as it is not self evident. Many claim that the increased loiter time of UAVs allow for better timing and targeting, and there has been video evidence of this. You may be correct, but you still bear the burden of evidence when you make this claim.

>putting a drone in the sky is faster than putting a regular plane in the sky.

This is untrue, as the USA has had B1 and B52 bombers continuously in flight over Afghanistan for weeks on end at many points in the war, to provide air support for ground forces. Most strike aircraft and bombers are also much faster than the UAVs.