Well AEW will be limited to a helo, the aircraft cannot be tanked by anything embarked so the carrier is going to have to be close to the enemy due to limited range of the F-35B, you will need considerable surface vessals to protect the carrier itself.
Your point on the surge is a good one, but if carrier is already deployed to somewhere in the Pacific and has only around 12 jets on her as will be routine, will take a while to get the other F-35s to her.
I would say most major players in the world would easily get beyond 12x F-35s and a carrier with minimal surface escorts, if carrying a full air wing she does bring far more to the table. But my concerns also relate to to the comments of lack of armour and them not having the sophisticated defence systems required.
They are not going to be as good as an American carrier or the French carrier and I would be surprised if we had enough surface ships in the fleet to act as escorts!!!!
I could still see both being cancelled or sold before entering service, would be a shame at this late stage though as so much has already been spent on them!
If we really wanted a nice cheap/small carrier force might aswell have retained SHAR/GR9 with the Invincible class. But instead we will spend a lot of money to end up with something which is rather limited!!!!