Not A Boffin:
You say F-35B cannot be operated from a CVS, on what do you base this? It's academic now as we aren't getting any 'Bs anymore, but this myth has been doing the rounds for a while. A couple of years ago I was visiting Lusty and got chatting with some of her officers and crew about this. At the time they had a full sized mock up of the F-35B on board so I asked the obvious questions: Can you handle the real thing?
Yes they can, the Lightning fits on the lifts (it's a bit of a squeeze length wise but in rough weather they would just load it on diagonally), and it's empty weight is well within the 18.5 tonne limit for the lifts. The Lightning is substantially heavier than the Harrier when fully loaded but not proportionally larger. The Harrier has a spot factor of 0.89 and the F-35B has a spot factor of about 1.05. If you can get 12 Harriers aboard a carrier plus helos, you can also get 12 Lightnings aboard to replace the Harriers, not 8 or 6.
But as I said, it's all academic now.