The shine on the F35 may be fading because people have gotten a better idea about the performance and capabilities of the new 5th generation Russian fighters that the F35's will be going up against.
I personally believe that the Air Force and design people are already well into design and planning for the 6th generation and even 7th generation fighters that will be in the future. I believe that these fighters will be more likely to replace the pilots than at anytime before. I think that when you get to those capabilities that many of them will be beyond what a pilot could be expected to take so I think that they may remote the pilot as is done in drones today but that it's possible that in the 7th generation fighters that AI will be fully implemented by then and it's possible that some computer or robot will be flying the future military aircraft. I think it's just a matter of time before they start taking the pilot out of the equation either directly or indirectly. Could be that the future pilot will just go along for the ride and for unforeseen circumstances so that they could take control over from the computer if necessary.