Lonewolf - the secret is in the timing, the Dutch political call to pull out was perhaps left too late...
Billy Flynn and Doc Nelson (the test pilot cited in the F-16 DACT report) are colleagues at LM who both work together alongside the test pilots from BAeS, the US Military and Partner nation military test pilots. The point of Development Test is to be critical and the inclusion of Military test pilots, FTEs and Maintainers on the Integrated Test Forces was to ensure that the F-35 was developed with the frontline in mind from the outset. Call it 'keeping Industry honest' if you will, but what it has meant is that the varied real world experiences from USN, USAF, USMC, RN, RAF, BAeS and all the others have been used to get the aircrfat to where it is now and push capabilities further in the future.
Glad Rag, I can assure you that the F-35 is a massive leap forward to what we in the UK are used to. Have you considered the vintage of the avionics currently fitted to Typhoon and Tornado when making statements about the design age of the F-35 system? For aerodynamic performance comparisons look for interviews with the RAF and RN aircrew who have actually flown the F-35 to get their opinion. Luckily due to experience that the UK has with Harrier, Typhoon, Merlin etc. the RN and RAF actually have a significant number of personnel who are well versed and experienced in composite repairs, including the challenges presented by doing this whilst embarked on a ship.
My personal opinion on your question regarding manned aircraft being obsolete is that we are nowhere near that point yet. The current technology demonstrators in test (X-47B, Taranis, Neuron etc) are not anywhere close to being "fighters". Deep strike and reconnaisance platforms from a host nation or CVN maybe but they are not designed for or thought of as air-air combat platforms.
Whilst the tecnology will continue to develop, and the work that the X-47B team are doing is incredible, there is no point in waiting around until something useful for what the UK needs is developed in however many years.