I'm tending to start to disagree with that statement (with no offense to you). I think it's more or less the pilot, not the machine. You equip any multirole plane right and it starts to boil down to pilots skill. For instance me, I'm a virtual strike pilot through and through. Nothing like screaming down valleys, mountains, dodging trees, buildings, wires, etc just to drop a bomb or launch a missile. Get me in the Wild Blue Yonder and it's like "Okay man, where are my AMRAAMs?, i.e. I can do BVR, but get me into a dogfight... yeah right. Whereas people enjoy the thrill of dogfighting and all that jazz. Sure militaries these days only have so much time and money so that's where I think that's where it comes from.
Personally I think the Gripen and EF2000 suffer only in range, not so much capability, they're both really nice to fly and couldn't ask for anything else, well a Super Hornet but that's for some other place and time.
But the JSF fills the requirements that the Marines like and overall it's a cool little toy plane but nothing to get excited over IMHO.