GreenKnight: thanks! I could probably have looked some of that up. What my ship driving brethren who knew anything about that told me, back in the 80's, was that the program kept getting "approved, unfunded" in successive budget allocations. Sort of the old IPTL and not quite able to make the "cut line" and eventually, as you point out, the program got funding starved and went the way of the plains buffalo. Too bad, as the accuracy issue was most likely something fixable with improvements in FC systems (similar to things like CORT in the FFG-7 class) or guidance packages like Copperhead.
WEB, I see we agree, more or less. Thanks for your expanding on that thought. Then again, one would hope F-35 would be considerably more capable than Harrier, it's had the benefit of a lot of tech improvements over the last 30 years.
@ not a boffin: I'll provisionally agree, given that the upgrades also included the deck launched Tomahawk, helicopter facilities upgrade, and of course comms suite upgrades for C4I.
The NGFS was still a capability, but you are more correct than I about why the BB's were reactivated when they were.