Phillip,
One of the advantages of going back to the B is that the UK requirements, including SRVL, were built in from practically day 1. As Spaz has highlighted a lot of the work to develop the flight control software was done early on at Boscombe, including SRVL trials on Charles de Gaul.
When we switched to C a major challenge was to shoe horn the UK specific testing into the already tight timelines. As it was, UK involvement with the F-35C EMALS launch was important at the time, but became irrelevant when we went back to B.
Back to the thread, I'd be intrigued if Sharkey's views would change if he visited Pax River and actually saw the B and C being tested side by side. With some up to date knowledge he might be better placed to comment.
As far as the C-130 kill? Gentlemanly combat in air to air went out of fashion in about 1915....