While I'm on my little F-35 hobby horse ( last for a while, promise ! ) - much is made of the point that having a cat 'n trap carrier would allow use of things like Hawkeyes and commonality with other Navies.
I can only agree re. the commonality bit ( but how much use would it REALLY be apart from the French ); but as for AEW, if half the claims for the F-35 made are true, couldn't it supply an AEW link, probably with buddy AAR ?
I've also seen some quite staggering mentions of the F-35's kit, in the public domain but only briefly - to the extent I'll not mention such here.
Still, I really, really need an Aston Martin for essential self esteem 'force projection'/(pulling women) purposes, but my bank manager disagrees, he just can't see a future when it will be required - can't give a toss about me, and he already has one...