All is not necessarily as it seems. CdG has had her share of problems, the majority of which have been overcome - she is currently exercising in the IO and performing reasonably well, (HMS Lancaster is part of her TG). I believe the reason the CAG is short is due to delays in Rafale production & delivery, rather than anything wrong with the ship. SASless, don't believe a word on Typhoon navalisation - it is FAR from simple and would not be cheap.
The reason the French bought into CVF is essentially because they had such a nightmare building the only non-US CVN, they decided to go non-nuclear for the second. This needed a whole new design and the easiest way to get that was to get aboard CVF (design by Thales Naval, ex Thomson CSF - actually by BMT for most of it). However, this is only feasible because we have the ability to put cats and wires into the ship. Had we gone pure STOVL, then none of this would have come to pass.
If we would only have the balls to put them in from the off and buy the CV variant of F-35 Dave / Ken / Barbie, we would have interoperable airgroups. If (as alluded to elsewhere) we are still putting aircrew in fast jets in twenty years time to replace GR4, then whatever that Fast Jet becomes should be designed to operate off a flat-top from the off - still owned by RAF if necessary, just more flexible in deployment.