"Albeit late and at a price to make one's eyes bug out"....
True, but perhaps an understatement. This is no ordinary PITA combo of delays and overruns, because the world's largest air force has bet everything on the program's performance. And lost.
As Dave Deptula and others repeat often, the USAF's operational fighter force is now the oldest in its history, by an increasing margin. This would not be the case if F-35 had met its 2009 schedule and procurement cost, let alone its 2001 numbers. The AF has not reached its nominal replacement rate (based on 1900 fighters and a 30-year lifetime). And there is little money available to update F-15s and F-16s to anything near the standards of current production fighters without cutting further into F-35.
Meanwhile, as F-35s get delivered, but are not at a stage where the units can accept pilots fresh out of T-38s, the operational-but-not-deployed squadrons remaining can't produce enough qualified fighter pilots, and the AF is looking at a three-digit buy of armed trainers, which it will then be stuck with for many years.