John, I'm interested in your comment about the pilot becoming the limiting factor, especially with reference to F-22 - I think, physiologically he has been for years. Raptor has the same Gz limit as F-15, in which we were training our students to operate at +9g, using the centrifuge to do the g-tolerance training and individual assessment way back. I would agree that a trainer that offers exposure to higher g earlier in training is a good thing, but it starts to get expensive to make the airframe capable of withstanding the forces and increased fatigue usage and to make the engine powerful enough to sustain the higher g. Getting the fighters to operate above those sort of levels becomes even more technically difficult, although technology moves on, obviously. That makes me wonder if that problem (pilot being limiting factor with respect to g) will continue to become much more of an issue. Of course the French managed to stress Mirage to 11g, but I don't think the airframe started life with many coins that high!
If memory serves, the pilot in the Edwards crash ejected, but died from blast injuries due to the speed, which was well above the ACES seat limit. My understanding was that he had not performed his g-straining manoeuvre (insert your own term for that here). So with regard to those two aspects, the pilot and the seat were the limiting factors, as you say.
Still, shouldn't be a problem for F-35 drivers - tongue firmly in cheek, by the way.
