even up until today it is a very complicated and far from trouble free system with more than one part with limited life-expectancy performance, shaft, gears and bearings come to mind here, we're not even speaking about the 3,000Lbs of death weight it comes with and a life expectancy for the whole engine set up only half that for the normal engine ,4000 iso 8000, lift-fan only 200hrs.
The lift fan has the same lifespan as the engine, used 5minutes every two hours
The hot air injestion problem is a show stopper, but the lift fan also produces twice the vertical lift for the energy used.
So the 2700lb dead weight is easily outweighted by the 'free' 10,000lb of lift it produces. That 7000lb is the entire VLBB and spare that the X-32 could never have. The C require's more 'dead weight' to land on a carrier the old fashioned way...
I'd say the lift fan is a brilliant solution to two major problems with vertical landing.