The F111 was acknowledged (if with GREAT reluctance) as having inadequate performance when compared with contemporary Soviet aircraft of the day. This was rammed down the very unwilling throats of the Pentagon heirarchy by USAF Colonel John Boyd (See:
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist).)
However, despite its enormous cost and the long delay in its entry into RAAF service, I think you will find,
onetrack, that from a military, but far more importantly, political point of view, it would be considered a great success in RAAF service, for it gave Australia a very credible long range (and most importantly,
unsupported) strike capability far, far superior to what the RAAF currently has with its replacement.
Whereas it definitely had inferior performance to first ranking Soviet aircraft as far back as the 1970s, in the environment it would have operated if put into active service with the RAAF, it presented a very real threat to nations best left unnamed here and one that, in more than one moment of very serious political crisis - crises that the vast majority of Australians know nothing about - it gave the Australian government options that although (thankfully) never needed to be implemented, the potential ‘other side’ were very aware of.
I also think most who had anything to do with the aircraft would take you task over your hyperBOWLic (sorry, couldn't resist that
) comment "the seemingly regular losses of F-111's, in non-combat flight". I think most disinterested observers would attest that the loss rate was low by any standard.
In closing - and getting back to the thread title - I agree with 500N. Those airframes could quite easily have been made available to museums rather than dumped the way they were. There seems to me to be far too many in Canberra who are far too willing to destroy or at least minimise any semblance of military tradition in this country.