John,
i respect your point, but i'm at a loss why those developement problems still exist in the second decade of the aircraft. The jet does not expand the flight envelope into regions totally unknown before. My old Rhino i started flying 1977 flew faster than M2, had 8.5 g's available, could shoot the gun, carry bombs and i never was able to overstress the airframe or the engines in a way that they quit on me.
We didn't have stealth, couldn't take off or land without a suitable peace of runway and our sensors and gadgets could't cope with the ones on later jets. Therefore to expect developement problems on those new areas is understandable, but airframe and engine problems under such a restricted flight envelope like the jet is operated at the moment are hard to understand.
The next question is, what kind of aircraft will fill the gap for the next decade, if you expect some more years until those problems are sorted out?