Gravelbelly, I missed your apology for the slur on my character
You're correct when you say that the UK had a National requirement to replace Jaguar hence the ability to include a secondary GA capability within the specs. Unfortunately the platform was not procured against a the National Staff Requirement - 414. The original UK requirement was to replace the F4 (and Jaguar) which, given the delays and world events, morphed into the Tornado F3. Unfortunately, the UK was the only Nation which had the air to ground requirement, although Spain was supportive. As a consequence, I remember discussions on the defensive capabilities where the Germans were vehemently opposed to any expense to include or validate a capability they did not require to meet a UK specific role. You will not find scenarios in the ESRD for ground attack missions, although some air to air scenarios that are included might look remarkably similar! This brings us back to the conclusion that air to air was the design driver. You cannot have an agreed design driver if one Nation does not require the platform to operate in that role. I do, however, agree that the functionality was included from inception. It would have been virtually impossible to do otherwise. I think we're agreed that this is an issue of emphasis but 4 Nations required a fighter and only one required a bomber.
Pushing the Italian requirement was indeed relevant. Had the aircraft met its original ISD, Italy could have avoided the Tornado F3 lease. The political delays that spawned the Eurofighter 2000 tag made the lease inevitable. That Italy chose the F3 (which incidentally I was also involved in), underlined their need for an interim air to air platform and emphasises the fact that Typhoon was procured by Italy as an air to air platform.
I'm afraid we do disagree on the emphasis on testing. Trust me when I say that the politics of test are tortuous and the order in which it is completed is extremely significant. It has taken years to evolve to a point where DT and OT can be integrated rather than run back to back. The test requirement was, in Typhoon's case complex, extremely role specific and involved different locations and test assets. Agreeing the priorities was fundamental and not accidental.
As to the breakdown of costs I'm sure all the design teams were under pressure to come in on budget. I agree totally that project delays never reduce costs, merely reprofile the additional cost into later years. I have no doubt that the Nations were the prime culprits for such cost inflation. That said, I suspect Eurofighter were relieved that they had wiggle room when problems such as those with the flight control software emerged. As we all know, elements of the requirement have still not been delivered. Rather than challenge the multi role issue NAO might have been better to concentrate on overall spec compliance.
As for workshare; we may wish to avoid that nugget. You will be well aware how National workshare was agreed and administered. Suffice to say for others that it was also fundamental to how the project was set up.