Yeah but no but yeah.......
WEBF -
Steel is cheap - these sponsons can be reduced to bean-tins fast in double quick time. CVF is not a done deal by a long way yet - there's a Defence Review and a budget crunch to overcome before QEII and PoW put to sea.
But only then do you get to address the real problem - what will we fly off them, how we do the C4ISTAR thing wihout cats and traps, therefore what will we use them for, and how do we protect them in anything other than in a benign environment?
FWIW, in any conceivable budgetary climate, IMHO the RN will be rather better off MINUS CVF because everything else would need to be sacrificed to pay for them, which is absolutely the last thing we need from the RN.
Just my £0.02,
S41