Since the FAA was indeed the stephchild of British Aviation, it did quite well, with what was available. Its planes were absolutely out of date compared to the high performance Luftwaffe, but were not so badly obsolete, compared to the Italian Airforce in the Med.
The available Fairy Swordfish was slow and sluggish, but rocksteady and multipurpose in nature. Its weakness was its advantage, as the very slow speed often was miscalculated by AA gunners on enemy ships, while its capability to survive hits was due to the absense of a metal skin, which tended to poverize, when hit, while fabric remained mainly intact. The Albacore was basically simmilar.
The equally multipurpose Skua was a poor mans aircraft, being designed to act as fighter and divebomber in one, making it poor in both jobs, as it had a modest payload and too slow a speed to give chase. Its lack of range complicated things even more, so the plane was doomed from the beginning, although it scored one succes, albeit against a weak target.
What was realy needed was a pure fighter to protect the fleet against airattacks. The Fulmar was good, but not realy perfect in this role, as were the first addapted Hurricanes, due to their non folding wings, resulting in fewer of them aboard carriers. Grumman Wildcats were designed to operate from carriers, but were also more compact and capable than the first addaptions, although still not high performance, as they were not a match for the Luftwaffe's landbased fighters of the period. With the comming of the Seafire, Corsair and Sea Fury, the problem was finally solved. These were high speed, hard hitting and manouvrable warplanes of equal quality to landbased fighters.