The USN is actually very interested in CVF - its a significantly more revolutionary design than the FORD, which is more of an evolution of a design from over 40yrs ago and is very manpower intensive.
The US carriers also do not routinely operate with as many aircraft as perhaps thought - they tried it with 90 plus in the early cold war and quickly stopped due to the difficulties on storage on deck. Its highly unusual to see much more than 48 F18s these days on a carrier, and a 50-60 wing is the usual standard.
CVF is designed to carry 36 JSF plus helos, based as I understand it on hangar stowage only and in reality if a deck park is used could easily go above 50 aircraft, much like her US cousins. If you based US CVN capacity on hangar parking alone, then it would be akin to a CVF as only a proportion of the airwing fits in the hangar.
The final reason why CVF is the length she is, is that a US CVN is physically too big to enter UK harbours.
Finally I have no idea where the nonsense about blue/brown water missions came from - CVF is regarded by US Admirals as their 11th & 12th carrier groups (I should know, I've spoken to them about this). She will swap out rotations with CVNs in the Gulf and likely carry US aviators regularly. This discussion on 'brown water' is utter bovine excrement.