Tim
You state the lack of need for VSTOL over the past decade,may I suggest that you look a little harder. CVS ops plus other recents dets have firmly established why STVOL is necessary for the UK. Ask the USMC why they feel STOVL is important and you ll get muchthe same reason.
One gets tired of all the speculation over will we/ wont we ref JSF. One thing is quite clear...if the UK government wishes us there on day one then stealth is the way to go, something that other options wont give us. If it doesnt then other options could be considered.
Lets just wait until the decision is made later this year and cut out the speculation and much of the ill informed information that appears on here.