[blagie]

Educated opinion: Everything I've seen around the F35 seems to indicate it overshot expectations and is a very good plane.

Uneducated opinion: Personally, I think it's also overused to a silly extent, but that's a question that it's good enough for many roles over more specialized planes. It's slower and more expensive than a 1954 f104, and I think cheap drone versions of many airplanes would be good enough for many missions, at a tiny fraction of the cost.