Thanks for some good points gentlemen.
I have had doubts about the RAF doctrine of a very few, sophisticated and expensive fighters to do everything. I tend to the view that a bottom up structure works best ie a sound numerical base of capable, adaptable, affordable and reliable 'workhorses' to perform the vast majority of tasks the air force has to do, with a pinnacle of fewer, complex and very capable fighters to do the seriously clever stuff necessary against a very-well equipped opponent.
We are now unlikely to ever to take on the very big boys on our own, so the fights we pick ourselves would most likely be better executed by our 2nd tier fighters. If a very big boy picks on us, well we just have to hope they are sufficiently deterred by our nasty, big black boats, or we have a bigger friend to back us up.
Being not just a sceptic, but an old sceptic, I do wonder about how much you can rely on computer simulations of just how few of your super fighters you need to defeat umpteen multiples of the bad guy's planes.
Wasn't it meant to be one of the very bad guys who was accredited with the concept of quantity having a quality of its own?