The vast majority of people don't fully understand the complexities of design, development and production of state-of-the-art military products. The complex negotiations that are involved over sensitive areas such as sensor performance take time and are not resolved easily.
You want to know about the quality of British engineering (military products, as this is a military forum):
Vulcan, Hawk, Harrier, Typhoon to name but a few. Quality products.
As for the over budget / late comments, anyone in the know will tell you that every long-term complex military project is inherently susceptible to time and cost increases:
Grippen, Rafale, YF-22 to name but a few (recent programmes) which have slipped and gone over budget.
The British lead the world in pioneering technology for: ejection seats, fly-by-wire flight controls, composites and manufacturing, helmet mounted displays, sensor fusion and much more.
Why do people want to rubbish our Nations achievements?
There is a huge difference between military and civil programmes.
How long does the radar and datalink flight test programme take on an A320?
Flight-testing takes a long time from first flight to delivery into service on military products, there is no escaping this and it is more often than not due to the constraints imposed by the aircraft owners (the Government).
..........sorry but all that needed repeating......................
And it needs saying that the best performing airliner wings in the world to date are all British.
And we have not even mentioned Rolls-Royce technology. If you want an example to quote of R-R dominance in their global industry look no further than the facts behind the HPT blades of the Trent family.