All of the above contributes to the feeling that the uber-complicated manned fighter / strike ac are going the way of the battleship; prohibitively expensive to design, build and run and increasingly totemic as status symbols of glory days of old rather than relevant to today's war. As Rupert Smith put it, State on State war is effectively defunct - so why prosecute a 21st century "Dreadnaught race" which not even the US can afford?
Much better, perhaps, for the "fighter factory" at Warton to turn it's gaze toward UAVs and cheaper, lighter fighters with meaningful warloads and persistance. Maybe the spirit of Boyd needs to be rekindled for a new generation of cheaper manned CAS platforms, though with the emphasis on payload/survivability/endurance rather than Energy Management and BFM.