Question ( AW ): Which reminds me….any of you lot help me with desert commanders mentalities?

Answer (RH ) ; I recommend you get 'Tank Battles in Miniature' western desert campaign 40/42 by Don Featherstone. Also  'Blaze Across the Sands' - desert scenarios for Spearhead.

Main characters and chronological sequence
O'connor/Wavell who stuffs the Italians - Balbo , Graziani etc
Rommel who stuffs O'connor ( captured by Rommel )
Rommel who stuffs Wavell
Auchinleck stuffs Rommel
Rommel stuffs Auchinleck and Ritchie
Auchinleck fights back - 1st battle of El Alamein - Italians get the focus and loose heavily . Otherwise stalemate
Aug 42 - Auchinleck replaced by Monty . Monty eventually drives out the Germans from Sept 42 - although this was mainly due to the advantage in amounts of material, supplies , etc ,etc Rommel was replaced by Von Thoma and Stumme ( died of a heart attack ).

Using a scale of 1-10, I would go for:
Rommel 9
Ritchie 5
Wavell 6
O,connor 6
Von Thoma 5
Stumme 5
Balbo / Graziani 3 ( all italians on a 3 )
Auchinleck 6
Montgomery 7