Glad Rag,
The F-35 was always supposed to be VLO, but was downgraded to LO in 2006. There followed a number of high level questions as to why and pressure to restore the VLO classification, which led to some hasty redefinitions and a return to VLO status. However, the issue wouldn't go away and suspissions led some to question whether the company was "watering down the low-observable characteristics of planes bound for non-DoD buyers". Burbage et al have always been a bit vague about answering that in public.
As it stood at the end of last year its RCS was accepted as being bigger than the F-22 despite being a smaller airframe. I don't think that was really news as it's pretty much what was expected. As for differences in export versions, again, we probably shouldn't be too surprised.
Courtney