It smacks of incompetence, fancy letting the it go this far without alternatives such as the Typhoon, Rafale etc, Australia could have 20 odd Typhoons by 2010, France would jump at the chance of an export!!!
So lack of time is a very poor excuse, it is like pleading incompetence.
It seem ludicrous that a government would paint itself into a corner and put itself it a terrible bargaining position with just a single supplier, if they have run out of time they should have listened to those who said don't buy a paper plane off the drawing board. the JSF will suffer delays like any other program only the terminally stupid would think otherwise.
And whats all this about commonality I thought the F18E/F was a completely different to the C/D, what are the common items?
IMHO Only the F18 quadron badges are the same! ;-).
Prepare yourselves for another round of keep the F111 and buy F-22 (when and If etc..) from the usual suspects.
