Lowe Fleiger,
I couldn't agree more. Land based aviation always trumps you for scale unless you do Maritime properly.
F35C brings range which means QECV can stand off further, or you can strike deeper. It brings persistence which means you can wait until the DCA has run out of fuel and then strike - or you can offer the boys on the ground a service for longer.
A cat and trap ship can play host to F18 or Rafale; a F35B ship is a F35B ship. We're now calling it Carrier Enabled Power Projection because apparently people didn't realise you could do lots more with a ship than fling jets around - hence rebranding required.
Using the smoke/fire curve (which accurately predicted Sea Jet demise, GR9 FE@R reduction and the loss of UK VSTOL) I detect suffcient smoke to asume that there's a fair old fire around the corner. I am going to put a pint on a reversion to F35B.
I think the real lesson to learn is the notion of the capability holiday simply doesn't exist. If you lose a capability - it doesn't come back. Good luck MPA brothers let's hope you can avoid a quagmire like this!