Lazer, the head of QinetiQ would say that, wouldn't he?!
Funny how successive governments have opted for "off the shelf" as soon as cost-saving became an issue. If it didn't ultimately save money, there'd be no point in doing it, by definition.
Feneris, that's indeed how it is - everybody assumed the catapult capability had been built-in either by proxy (assuming that the carrier design is a generic one-size-fits-all), or that it was there as a possible requirement, should we eventually buy Hawkeyes. But the longer the J35 saga goes on, you have to wonder what the real motives of the "catapult fall-back" were.
As for the Typhoons, by all accounts navalisation wouldn't be as big a programme as imagined, and a feasibility study has already been successfully completed. Clearly, when you've bought yourself more Typhoons than you need, asking France to sell us a last-generation design would be just a little too absurd even for the MoD.