A1bill, it doesn't matter how many times Dunford's announcement gets quoted, it doesn't change the fact that the political pressure from the USMC was such that his decision was unlikely to be other than "approved". I think Turbine just explained that very well and the statistics and flight summaries in Gilmore's memorandum show the declaration for what it is - a political necessity and an evaluation against a low benchmark. In other words, an "early" IOC.
Unless the definition has changed, IOC is supposed to declare a system and its operators (in the broadest sense of the term) is ready to conduct operations at its current level of capability (2B as it stands now). In this case that includes operations from the deck not simply being able to talk to a controller, land and take off from the deck, etc. If the engineering and sustainment requirements requirements have been met then the required sortie rate for operations set in July 2014 but have been very liberal.
Let's see how soon it gets deployed on its first operations (as in (IOC). If, as you imply, we're waiting for 3F before it can really go, it's not much of an IOC.