Yes, the talking heads came to the debate four years late--the NAVSEA Aegis program office was on top of this years earlier (several folks who were in the program office at that time are now commanding Aegius ships--they had more than enough incentive to fix the problem :o)
And the Navy got some Vandals out of the program before it was cancelled.
Bottom line: Aegis has evolved past the Sunburn threat.
Well, i hope that you are right. And you may be since the latest data i have concerning sunburn vs Aegis destroyers pertained to Aegis ships we had given to the Japanese and the Taiwanese (data dated 2002). The most recent US Aegis data i have was for 2000. Hence maybe US ships have 'evolved' beyond the Sunburn threat (and maybe even the Yakhont ....although i have doubts about evolving past the Yakhont since Rumsfeld mentioned it as a specifically major threat due to its low radar signature just last year), and in any case if i were a naval captain i would not rest easy if my ship could not tackle missile systems like the Sunburn (tackling stuff like the Exocet is pretty simple for any ship with a respectable slaved-tracking radar and gattling gun system ...even harpoons can be splattered! However sunburns would worry me and i would strive to ensure something was done about such a threat). Hence if i feel that way i am sure US of A Naval captains must have been feeling even greater pressure. It would be ludicrous for them to ignore such a threat (although to be honest with you i do not understand why Clinton did what he did! Maybe you can give me an concrete answer on that one because it just does not make sense)
Anyways i guess just as US f-16s are better than export F-16s then US Aegis destroyers must be better than their Japanese and Taiwanese counterparts (which even at the end of 2002 were totally susceptible to the sunburn and were being 'sunk' in war models by small cheap gunboats armed with a couple of missiles from over a hundred miles away). That it is possible our Aegis system packs stuff their Aegis ships lack. Actually that is a virtual given!
However let me ask you another question (the first was why in goodness name Clinton cancelled the Vandal). How would an Aegis Destroyer handle 24 SunBurn missiles coming at it at a 'ripple pattern' at the same time when all it takes to sink or cripple the ship is one and a half sunburns? The reason i am saying 24 is because a 3-pack Chinese gunboat squad operating from base can launch 8 missiles each simultaneously (from a maximum range of 250km) and the missiles would assume the ripple flight pattern and i really do not see how a ship could tackle 4 sunburns let alone 24. And the Chinese stratagem is to deploy as many of the missiles forward and basically saturate the skies with them (with the flight program of the missile being the 'pack hunt' mode where they fly as a squall). This si the same reason the Chicomms have been also getting the air-launched version.
How cant he Aegis system take care of a saturated attack?