The on paper assumption / sales pitch that remains valid in most scenarios is increased survivability of shooters = more sorties. If hardware can operate from austere conditions you can squeeze in a few more missions, which may be tactically/operationally significant, but there's limitations on modern airframes, still need to go back to a well resourced large base (5th gen also requires conditioned shelters) for maintenance, i.e. it's still fundamentally a bandaid solution. The logistics tail is also larger <- this gets slept on (or underplayed in public facing messaging).
It remains valid in most scenarios, as in most force on force that is not US/PRC, because very few countries has c4isr abilities to kill chain entire operational theatre, i.e. it's partially hopium strategy in US vs PRC in IndoPac. Which circles back to your second point, the related debate around hardening and distributing is almost distraction - airforce capitalization of highend platforms is in the shitters - so there's parallel discussion around distributed / agile deployment but with cheaper CCAs. Of course what's typically being hand waved away is the logistics tail part, i.e. there's already massive maintenance personnel shortages, unlikely to disperse thousands of maintenance crews on the ground to support the concept. The even more handwaved part for US in IndoPac is host nation access / political constraints.
There's a reason US wants JP to support ACE/agile combat employment (as in on main islands), increase harden shelters... but JP reluctant to open main islands. Because no one wants more American forces doing shenanigans with their civilians and the optics of having support fleets reminding populace they're on the frontline is bad. Hence JP still largely constraining US to Okinawa/Ryukyus, PH in Luzon/Palawan. The further downstream handwaving of all this is even if properly implemented, is now you've spread out shit load of more exposed logistics staff across vulnerable islands, i.e. dramatically increased exfiltration complexity / suicide deployments. Survivability of drones increases, survivability of the logistics force decreases. Which is... even worse optics, hence it's rarely even part of discussion with respect to ACE. There some self awareness with marine NMESIS MLRS / EABO (expeditionary advanced base operations)... i.e. wait we're sending marines on likely one way missions to tiny islands that PRC can lock down? Maybe that's worth if they take out a type055.
It remains valid in most scenarios, as in most force on force that is not US/PRC, because very few countries has c4isr abilities to kill chain entire operational theatre, i.e. it's partially hopium strategy in US vs PRC in IndoPac. Which circles back to your second point, the related debate around hardening and distributing is almost distraction - airforce capitalization of highend platforms is in the shitters - so there's parallel discussion around distributed / agile deployment but with cheaper CCAs. Of course what's typically being hand waved away is the logistics tail part, i.e. there's already massive maintenance personnel shortages, unlikely to disperse thousands of maintenance crews on the ground to support the concept. The even more handwaved part for US in IndoPac is host nation access / political constraints.
There's a reason US wants JP to support ACE/agile combat employment (as in on main islands), increase harden shelters... but JP reluctant to open main islands. Because no one wants more American forces doing shenanigans with their civilians and the optics of having support fleets reminding populace they're on the frontline is bad. Hence JP still largely constraining US to Okinawa/Ryukyus, PH in Luzon/Palawan. The further downstream handwaving of all this is even if properly implemented, is now you've spread out shit load of more exposed logistics staff across vulnerable islands, i.e. dramatically increased exfiltration complexity / suicide deployments. Survivability of drones increases, survivability of the logistics force decreases. Which is... even worse optics, hence it's rarely even part of discussion with respect to ACE. There some self awareness with marine NMESIS MLRS / EABO (expeditionary advanced base operations)... i.e. wait we're sending marines on likely one way missions to tiny islands that PRC can lock down? Maybe that's worth if they take out a type055.