The lack of buddy buddy refuelling for F35B is a slight red herring as precisely because it is VSTOL is the reason it has less requirement for this capability. The USN (as we used to on a conventional carrier) primarily use the tanker for recoveries to catch the bolters who may need a squirt of fuel. It can be used to slightly extend mission range but realistically for a division only in the order of a couple of thousand pounds each. Useful but never going to replace land based AAR ( USN Afghanistan current day and after 911).
Not being an engineer I also fail to see how complicated it is to generate this capability on the F35. The buddy systems I have used are not hugely complex and can be bolted on to any jet