For me, the overall message is so flattering for the airplane that it sounds more as the result of lots of press training or at least as pilots being very careful in what they say because publicly critiquing this airplane is not good for one’s career prospects.
And my experience with the journalism at Air & Space has been positive, I have read both highly critical and very insightful articles from their journalists over the years. That experience gives me some trust in them which I could understand would not come on first exposure.
I think it would also be useful for them to find 8 pilots who have both flown the new plane and are critical of it versus other aircraft designed for a similar role. That will have to wait I think until there are more flight hours on it in more situations.
What I find most interesting about these types of systems are the differences between the AA-1 version (first article) and the one they consider 'first release.' In new systems there are lots of things that change during the initial testing and evaluation. This is true of software just as much as it is hardware, although hardware takes a lot more documentation.
"In the two years since [the 388th’s] last Red Flag exercise, the airplane itself has had some pretty significant advancements. A couple of months before the 2017 Red Flag, the Air Force declared that the squadron was what we call “initial operational capable.” So the jet still had some operating limitations—altitude, airspeed, Gs, things like that. The software on the aircraft, though very capable, still had some limitations in terms of some of the systems and some of the weapons it could control. Fast forward two years, and we’re operating with what’s referred to as full warfighting capability software. It’s a more advanced F-35 than it was two years ago."
But it's entirely possible that the plane is fine. Keep in mind that a lot of the criticism of the F-35 is also PR from competing defense contractors.