Yes, really good points all round. Let's face it, the more we ask a design to do, the more difficult it's going to be to acheive. STOVL, low RCS, agility, weapons load, sensors, oomph, comms and (as was raised light-heartedly) fuel load. It all adds up as we've seen in previous projects.
One thing I would say is that there really is nothing wrong with British engineering. In fact I would also apply this to previous projects too. IMHO a lot of the so called 'design difficulties' weren't down to the engineers, they were caused (at least in part) by constantly changing requirements, project management, funding constraints and politics - particularly where there were more than one nation involved.