Have I missed something or are we beating ourselves to death with the bleeding obvious?
We only had VSTOL carriers, so the only UK FW in the fight were VSTOL ones. (And the Vulcan). When the war was over there was a small period of time when the surfaces available dictated a VSTOL aircraft mount QRA. Once we'd built the requisite runway the big chaps turned up.
This is as simple today as it was then. Maritime aviation will always lose out to land based aviation when it comes to scale. If you want the biggest and fastest you probably have to go for land based. If you want the most flexible you go for VSTOL. If you want a happy marriage of the two, CV is the answer. At about that point you check the wallet, see what you can afford and go back to the beginning.
Or just guess the answer. Announce it in the press and call it SDSR.
Who would want a CVS based SHAR when a land based F4 was available (nearby)? No one. Who would want a SHAR when nothing else was available? Everyone. Who would want a carrier based F4 in place of a couple of CVS based SHAR? All depends on where you stand on the pitching deck/ sortie generation debate!