Dave B
I can't help noticing the amount of support the CTOL F-35 is getting, seems the 'big ship & Phantom were the good old days ' contingent lives on...
How about the fact that VSTOL allows operating from rough forward airstrips, which is a huge increase in flexibility ?
I admit they'll have to train it to do STOVL, but can't see that being too hard.
Also with VSTOL you can use almost any ship in the fleet ( if you have one ) at a pinch - being restricted just to what will almost certainly be one very valuable & distant deck seems a high price to pay just to go a bit further or longer.