Stacker,
Good example. The F-111B was a classic example of uncontrolled weight growth, triggered by a twin engined design with swing wings - both of which are known weight drivers. It's interesting that Fort Worth (having been responsible for F-111B) once again experienced severe weight growth problems on F-35. It was, to say the least, unfortunate that they didn't learn the lessons. In their defence, F-111B was many years before F-35 and most of the people involved had retired. Corporate memory loss and all that.
You are absolutely right that designing naval (cat and trap) aircraft usually demands a quite distinct design approach, which has to be informed by a lot of company experience plus a willingness to share information with the USN and, at times, accept direction from them. I also agree with you over transfer of designs from land to sea. I am quite happy to be corrected, but the only land based design that I know successfully moved over to cat and trap operations was the T-45, and that's just a smallish trainer. Even that took a substantial redesign to get it on and off the deck. (Mig-29 and Su-33 are doing STOBAR, (not cat and trap) but I'd love to know what their operational payloads and fatigue lives are).
The design challenge for F-35C (as part of a family of aircraft) is therefore a very severe one, almost as severe as that for the F-35B. Selling a single engined design to the USN was also hard work for the DoD (not LM or Boeing, but the DoD central staffs who drove the JSF concept through). However, the thing that clinched it was the availability of a very advanced and powerful engine that would deliver the necessary level of performance from a 75,000 lb class aircraft.
Retired F4 - I think your quote is absolutely spot on target, and very timely. F-35 is a more 'balanced' stealth combat aircraft design, and I'd suspect that many other techniques and systems are being used to improve survivability.
Best Regards as ever
Engines