a higher incidence of awards at all levels resulted from an effort to make unliked wars more palatable to the public (ala the large number of very high awards for Mogadishu...).

There were also a number of MOH awards late (after the winter of '44) in WW II for people leaping atop or rolling over on grenades to save others. I can't judge them but many who served during that period strongly disagreed with MOH awards for such actions even though most were obviously posthumous. That practice continued in Korea and Viet Nam. There aren't as many grenades in Afghanistan or Iraq as in those other wars.

There was also a considerable outcry within the forces over the excessive number of awards in Just Cause, Urgent Fury and Desert Shield / Desert Storm. All the service gave out awards with great abandon in those operations and many complained a mockery of the awards resulted. This led to a revision and tightening of standards after DS /DS. It was needed.

I'd also suggest that rate per casualty can be misleading. Many combat deaths in OEF / OIF have been from IED and such and there have been few multi day fire fights involving large numbers on both sides which were the norm in WW II and Korea and were quite common in Viet Nam.

On balance, I'd say the alleged and above quoted words of the AUSDPR were clumsy and ill chosen but her point was fairly accurate based on what I've seen, read, heard and been able to ascertain.

Short answer -- there have not been as many 'opportunities' in the current wars.

Also, as Entropy says, just one or two more would considerably change the ratios -- and sometimes those things take years to get through the system.