if the company had come close to delivering on time and to budget, then it would have been a very different story.
Very true. But, despite the delays and budget increases, the company did come close to delivering these aircraft. This, to me, is why seeing them destroyed and the capability lost is such a big blow - far more so than, say, cancelling our part in some future pie-in-the-sky programme like JSF/JCA which is still years from service and is essentially an abstract concept.