No-one is ever going to hold it up as a model programme, that's for sure.
On the other hand, it's the programme most of "the west" bet on. Like it or not, it's what we're stuck with, so making it work becomes the priority. Endless calls of "we're doomed" sometimes on the flimsiest of evidence are not necessarily an indicator of the truth either.
There are a couple of things that don't get reported as much - the reduction in unit price (yes, I know it's not what was originally promised) below many of the predictions and the curious absence of anyone who's actually flown the jet decrying it in public - at least as far as I can see. They can't all be still in or on LMs payroll can they?
None of which makes it an uber-jet, but none of which makes it a white elephant either.
Hindsight is a curious thing. The big cost savings were seen as being commonality of kit for which apparently, the airframe had to be pretty much the same. You get the same in ships where people suggest that a common hullform might be a great way of saving money. Problem is that when you get into the detail of the hullform (much as with an airframe), the different arrangement drivers and loads, tend to move you away from there.
In hindsight, it might have been better to concentrate on common system / equipment items (eg engines, radar, displays, helmets, actuators etc) to get your logistics savings, but let the designers optimise the airframe and its structure for the mission. Would have made STOVL extremely difficult to fund, but that was always going to be the case. Might also have maintained a wider fighter design expertise base, which would have been beneficial for F/A XX and so forth.
But then people are convinced that the future is autonomy and anyone who ventures otherwise is clearly a heretic who needs to be burned at the stake. As with whether the F35 is an eventual success or not, time will tell......