Engines -
Actually, we're not far off agreement. Particularly if EMALS matures into what it could potentially be - a low-maintenance and scalable catapult - CATOBAR is the way to go, because STOBAR does little for you except eliminate the cat, while (at the best of times) taking more deck space.
Sea Gripen, by the way, is taking the agnostic approach and is being offered with or without a cat-compatible nose gear and loadpaths. It's more realistic than Seaphoon, I think, particularly for smaller navies.
The question with the B is how much you're paying for STOVL and how much for stealth. Somehow I think it ought to be possible to build an aircraft with 43000 pounds of thrust and have it do STOBAR with more than 3000 lb/450 miles....
JF - Re the car off the ski-jump, that's basically what this guy did, except on two wheels...
Evel Knievel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia