Maybe you fellows take Bill Sweetman's writing a bit too seriously.
Compare this sentence: "Commonality has diminished during the development of JSF. " to this pronouncement, emitted in 1995: "At the inception of the JSF program, in 1995, then-project director George Muellner described the aircraft ( aircraft in the singular -- Elmo) as “70% air-to-ground, 30% air-to-air.” Repeat, year 1995.
"... The F-35 is not optimized for air-to-air combat. JSF is neither fast nor agile enough to choose whether to shoot or scoot against an adversary like the Su-30. ..." Can you cite any evidence for that, Bill? Are you referring to to the conventional takeoff model, the USN version, the STOVL F-35, or all three? Remember, commonality has diminished.
Furthermore, Bill, you persist in implicitly defining air-to-air combat as dosgfighting. That's not the whole picture.
My comments tonight:
(1) All three versions of the F-35 will go into production.
(2) Some of the USN F-35's will have back seats for NFO's. So single engine, two seats for some.
(3) The STOVL version will be as good a STOVL fighter as anyone can make in the early 21st century.
(4) In spite of (3), it is a mistake to center Britains' aircraft carrier program on this one type of warplane with no competitor in its category.
(5) I 'm not sure that aircraft carriers are the UK's top military hardware priority, whether or not the proposed aircraft carriers have catapults and arrester gear.