NoHoverstop and stilton
Given that Ralph designed the P1127 and that he has no recollection of any discussions re the juxtaposition of the two controls I think we can take it that it just happened the way it did 'cos it seemed the easy/natural solution at the time.
Talk of the outboard shelf does remind me that it was deliberately added as a hand steady (Hugh deffo told me that) and that once it existed it was seen that the Hyd gauges would go in nicely - efficient use of space thing again.
As to whether it would have been nice to operate the nozzles from the top of the stick I can only say "not 'alf" whenever they were moved as a flying control (ie accel transition and the end of the decel transition and at the hover). However when used as a selection device (ie putting them to the hoverstop before a VTO or down for an STO or raising them after a landing) then a lever was clearly quicker and easier to use.
Indeed after the hole in the wood night trials in 1966 I started a campaign that led to the nudger on the throttle (I would have been happy with the sticktop but the throttle had the airbrake control which was redundant in the circuit so could become dual use). In the P1127 days I don't think the use of an electric switch for the full authority control of the nozzles would have been tolerated on safety grounds. I only got the nudger through because it was fine limited to plus/minus 10 deg.
Jumping on to the VAAC I preferred the speed inceptor to be on the stick (the so called 1 1/2 inceptor layout) meaning you used your right hand for everything associated with flying the aircraft which gave me a sense of very low workload. (as the docs told me when I said this "ah Farley you were only using the left hand side of the brain with nothing for the right hand side to do - that will seem a doddle")
Sorry - you got me going again. Sad really.
JF