A typical comment is, this programme is too big to fail.
Have you heard the phrase, 'This bank, is too big to fail?
Nothing is too big to fail.
Without doubt, this is a massive, mega zillion dollar project.
If it is fundamentally flawed, which is the contentious part.
If it is, it is not too big to fail.
Then the brown stuff hits the turbine, to put it politely.
If I were some very rich country, and I wanted an effective machine, and the decision was down to me and my cronies.
I would pick a practical reliable solution. Which given a choice, would be the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Some things are too clever for their own good.
It is, after all, a stealthy Yak-141 with a computer.
KISS - Keep it simple stupid. Is still very true.
In the future, who will be your enemy, and do you really need this very very very expensive technology, that can be seen with a crude J-Band radar ?
I think it more likely that requirements from the block 3 software would be either dropped or elongated into a block 4 delivery. Certain hardware upgrades would be postponed or weapon integration programs would be moved to the right and possible jet purchases would be elongated also by keeping the line running longer to save money now to waste it later. The jets themselves will get delivered.
I have to say stating KISS and the Typhoon in the same sentence in the context of naval aviation is mind bogglingly dumb imho. You have an airframe not designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier so would need extra avionics, gear strengthening and structural strenghtening to take the violent take off and arrestment pounding they'll be getting and you'll be buying it in tiny tiny numbers compared to other partner nations who will have no interest in the variant. Not to mention it'll take several years to do with both more development and integration cash needing to be spent all while two 65,000 ton aircraft carriers in need of modification to use said jet are sat around like lemons waiting to be squeezed. Factor in that you've gone around this loop once already with another aircraft (of which you already own four of) and are spending lots of money training your maintainers and pilots to fly said aircraft. Seaphoon now would kill UK fixed wing carrier borne aviation deader than a dead thing.
What part of any of that is in anyway KISS. Seaphoon was an option years ago when the French wanted to have the capability in Eurofighter and we nixed it (they buggered off not long after) because we didn't need carrier borne EFA, ooops.....