Glad rag - may I suggest you check date and context of posts and engage brain before opening mouth? You and Courtney may also wish to consider whether choosing to reduce FE@R in one very heavily committed force while largely (at the time) preserving it in another somewhat less heavily tasked force is compatible with "Joint" behaviour. Particularly when the consequence could be predicted by any who wished to see it.
FODPlod - QE & POW have a conventional propulsion system, not "podded". When you do shock and whipping analysis, two relatively heavy point loads at one end of the ship don't work overly well.
Glendalegoon - I rather think you'll find your CVN are followed by fleet oilers as well for exactly the same reason as ours will be. I suspect you've been reading a bit too much of Mr Clancy in your assessment of CVN as well.
What we have in QEC is something that is broadly analogous to USS Midway in terms of potential. There are limitations - a more capable AEW and organic tanking capability would be nice to have, but they don't render the ship helpless. As others have noted, being able to run that sort of capability on under 2000 bodies (only 700 to actually run the ship) is a significant cost benefit. Those who know what the aviation arrangements are like, know how much more efficient they'll be to operate than anything else we've ever had.
It is unfortunate that those who have fixated on the size of the ship have actually caused significant amounts of the cost, just in the sheer inertia generated in fighting them through the approvals process.