I think a lot of people are also confusing canard aircraft with canard deltas. A stable canard is better than a stable wing tail, and a stable canard delta is better than a delta, but delta wings have there own issues, more internal volume and less weight/unit area, but that is only due to the low aspect ratio. The high sweep angle loweres maximum lift and steepens the Cl Alpha curves. This means a lot of drag in a turn.
I think for low speed designs in general aviation that a canard has a lot of advantages. One being that when you stall such a plane the canard stalls first so you get the desired nose down pitching moment but the wing is still producing most of its lift so the sink rate is not as bad. Plus such designs are stable so there is the drag benefit.
For a combat aircraft there are advantages to all configurations. Canards can be used as brakes better than a tail. Weather you pitch a tailplane up or down it will try to lift one set of wheels off the ground while a down-pitched canard would just push down into the ground. to make an unstable canard to me seems to be foolish, really. It takes away all of the benefit of canards!! Are the figures for the F-35 based on planform shape and main wheels? if so... I had no idea its pitching moment arm was going to be so large, and it has large surfaces. I notice that there are no canarded "supermaneuvering" aircraft. Yes the Su-35/37 HAS canards, but it already had sufficiant supermaneuver pitch with its large tails and they added TVC as well. I guess then Tails allow for greater non aerodynamic maneuvering (pitch moment based, or post stall). Now I know its all still aerodynamics but I think of aerodynamic turning as a "sustained" Cl pulling the whole aircraft around, not a pitch moment exceeding the AOA limits.