Gents,
I'd like to come back here and respond.
a1bill, I was referring to a number of posts here on Pprune criticising the Typhoon cockpit. Like you, i've not seen anything really objective.
LO, the original requirements for the HMD were driven by lots of things. The JORD requirement was to deliver an IR imaging plus target tracking capability over a full 360 bubble around the aircraft, without the structure interfering. The requirement for what has become the monocular video camera arrived later.
The whole helmet/HMDS combination was identified as a system risk right from the start. The management of that risk was compromised by US DoD insistence on providing support to US based small businesses - these promised all sorts of things, but didn't deliver. There was a huge reluctance at senior programme level to take a proper look at European development, particularly the work being done by BAe at the time. The problems were only made worse when the helmet and display encountered (entirely predictable) problems during ejection trials.
Finally, the BAe design got a brief look in, when the programme was forced to look for an alternate supplier for the helmet. In my view, that was only used by the DoD to force the domestic suppliers to get their act together, which they apparently did. Once they did, the BAe helmet (practically current Typhoon) was ditched.
As ever, politics will often have major influence on US aircraft programmes. Nobody much likes it, but it's pretty much a fact of life.
Best Regards as ever to those managing the risks,
Engines