You'd think if anybody was going to be critical of the plane, it'd be the people who are going to fly it, but it's always random civilians. It's interesting to me that if, for example, you click the link to "Stillion and Perdue’s August 2008 war simulation," that article doesn't even mention the F-35, and is about amphibious landings, not a computer simulation.
"Ten years from now, [Lt. Gen.] Bogdan concluded, 'people will look back and they’ll go, ‘What was all the fuss about? This is a darn good airplane.’'"
There was also, of course, the interest in the F-35 being the first plane capable of holding combat diode lasers, though little's been said about that since 2002-2003.