One great loser would be the US Marine Corps. They really, really like their F-135s - rebranded F-35 after 1962 (F-135 was no more absurd than F-111 or F-117 , but F-35 is worse - where are the F-24 to F-34 ?)
More seriously, the F-135 provided USMC with a mach 2 fighter-bomber that could fly from the Iwo Jima class LPH and later from the LHAs. This gave- and still give - USMC tremendous power in Congress against the USN that usually wanted USMC fixed-wing air arm to disapear, arguing that supercarriers with catapults can do the job.
It should be reminded that the Navy F/A-18 Hornet was very nearly cancelled in 1980 when Senator Proxmire questionned its usefulness when compared to the USMC F-35 Rapier - the latter doesn't need a supercarrier after all ! The Rapier performance helped Carter winning
the CVV battle against the USN admirals (although Reagan 700-ship navy program re-established nuclear supercarriers in the mid-80's - the only two CVV ever build were happily scrapped after the end of Cold War in 1992 - a crying shame since Australia had shown interest in one of them, but the USN just wanted these ships trashed to the scrap heap of history)
For all their flaws USMC F-35s performed pretty well during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.
USMC however paid
a very high human cost to that independance from the USN
More generally, the Rapier speed of mach 2 is a powerful psychological (if not
magical) number. A subsonic machine (think of the P.1127 low-cost alternative once envisaged as backup to the Rapier when PCB ran into teething issues) couldn't have matched such apeal.
Seriously, can you imagine aircraft carriers, even small, defended by
subsonic interceptors - no more faster than a WWII Gloster Meteor ? Even with Sparrow- or AMRAAM missiles such machine would be a loser in any air battle (plus the drag of the missiles would slow it even more - bah) Not only speed, but also ceiling is important in A2A combat.
Such is the traction of the Rapier supersonic speed, it made 20 000 tons carriers viable alternatives to the much more expensive supercarriers. Just ask the Spanish and Italian and Greek navies about it.
I can tell you the French Aeronavale seriously vacillated in the mid-70's - Rapiers flying out of the 20 000 ton PH-75 were considered a viable candidate to replace the 35 000 tons Clemenceaus. In the end the Charles de Gaulle was build as a much improved, 50 000 ton Clemenceau (nuclear propulsion was considered but rejected as unpractical) As the Crusaders faded into utter obsolescence in the 1990's (!) Rapiers were once again considered but (as usual) Dassault had the final word and the Rafale M was born.
