AR is likely to be more important for both Dave B and Dave C because of the larger recoveries that the CVF Flypro is likely to generate. STOVL or not, if there's a foul deck and a large number of c/s ahead of you in the recovery, those at the end are liable to get very twitchy. Cat n trap will be even worse, BUT (and here's yet another argument in favour of Dave-C), a cat n' trap ship might just allow for a more capable tanker a/c (eg the boneyard S3s or whatever the USN buy if they go down a non-buddy route).
A buddy pack and wing tanks will only get you (say) 4000lb of F44, which isn't going to go very far, particularly for Dave C.