I'm not sure about WW2, but British units from 1946 to about the mid Sixties were involved in lots of counter-insurgency operations as teh Empire was disbanded. The SAS and other British elite units were involved in lots of Black Ops and undercover work, including "keenie meenie" (snake in the grass operations).
In one instance, British soldiers out in local towns were being targetted by terrorists. The SAS started to send out single soldiers in uniform followed but a disguised hit team (apparently a prerequisite of being on the team was that they could quick draw a HP-35 and empty the magazine into a target the size of a playing card -I don't know how far the target was from the shooter). The target soldier would get into trouble and the disguised team would get the terrorists.
Individual Regiments started to copy this technique and there were several instances of the SAS being ambushed by Regular soldiers and vice versa.
This would suggest that units would start copying succesful special ops tactics by forming their own units, these wouldn't be as effective or well trained but might provide some service.
As for the best men being siphoned off tor SOF work, this might happen but you can bet that lots of units would be hiding their best troops in order to keep their own units effective.
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