I have no military experience and I have not read every page of this thread, but that only puts me in the same boat as most of the 60 million people who have paid to build and will pay to operate these carriers. From this perspective, then, they look pretty bad.
I appreciate that they are considerably cheaper - about two thirds the cost, depending who you ask - than a Gerald R. Ford class, but that doesn't make much sense when we consider that they carry only about one third the aircraft, lack the benefits of nuclear power, have vastly less ability to actually sustain sorties, and lack catapults, so they can't launch refuelling or radar aircraft or in fact anything other than helicopters or the F-35.
And that's before we even consider the choice to go for the STOVL version of the F-35, which is more expensive and less capable in more or less every possible way.
The upshot of all this is that we go from having small, relatively affordable mini-carriers with twelve aircraft and helicopter-based early warning radar, to a huge, barely-affordable sort-of-fleet-carrier with, er, exactly the same capability. Only not even that, because we'll have one rather than two or three, so even that small capability will be available only part of the time.
From out here in civilian-land it looks like the QE class should make the UK an international military laughing stock. Presumably that impression is wrong. I hope it is wrong.
P