I don’t think that’s the case. I’ll agree that the view from the cockpit could have been better, and will add that the nose radome was constrained, which would have limited what could have been done from a forward looking perspective.
There is the possibility that the work done on the larger canopy for the aborted trainer version might have been implemented, it seemed to be structurally possible to do that - at the cost of some supersonic heating restrictions and bird strikes might have been an issue (Jag T.2s needed thicker canopies to cope).
Buccaneer never got a radar upgrade, its possible TSR.2 might never have either. Should have been possible to scab on LRMTS or a laser rangefinder and/or FLIR easily enough under the nose.
There may have only been four external hard points but they were well spaced with good weight ratings,
BAC looked at overwing hardpoints for the mini-TSR wing it thought about using for P.45, so that's a possibility for an upgrade too.
Eagle RB.1 fitted for LGBs could have taken a designator in the bomb bay along with a fuel tank to offset drag from four Paveways under the wings.
Agreed, it would be possible to use AN/AVQ-26 Pave Tack.
If you have Pave Tack, internal ECM etc. then yes, four LGBs could be carried and that would be very competitive (four 2,000lb Paveway III would be very formidable).
My own view is that TSR.2 revisionism has now overcompensated. The old theories of conspiring Admirals, KGB employed Prime Ministers and American subversion working to thwart British technical brilliance are clearly absurd, but the more recent narrative that it was fatally flawed seems over the top too. My own observation is the naivety of the RAF in its conception. There was far more realism about the difficulty of high-speed low level during the OR.314/324 studies than there was at the beginning of the TSR-2 process, the cost and time estimates were very optimistic given what was known about the challenges involved - that may have been wilful.
True, it may have gone the other way. I wonder if some of it is an attempt to deflect blame back onto industry?
The Air Staff probably was naive - although OR.314/324 included bespoke weapons too which added to the 'bleeding-edge' tech needed - but I guess at a time when aviation was rapidly progressing it was thought that the sky was the limit and that what looked impossible in 1957 might be possible within 5 years and old hat by 1967. They probably did get caught up in the hubris, and of course they probably wanted to make sure TSR could do everything as they only had one shot at it and by making it indispensable, hopefully make it cancellation proof too.
I still prefer the hundreds of Tornados and Jaguars to a few dozen TSR2s.
I don't think that a second order would have been impossible - once the production line was running, BAC might have had compelling reasons to promote a second batch to bring the overheads down further, offer lower prices and keep Weybridge/Warton running longer until the next project came along.
I think the only really critical airframe bit that's come up was material choice (TB's session at the RAeS event goes into this) - quite probably would have required significant re-manufacturing or extra new airframes after not many years; which all adds significantly to cost. Or maybe it'd be fine.
This would have been a massive headache (one can imagine that if these issues coincided with the Nott Review for example that it might have led to early retirement), but then as I've said earlier, Jet Provost, Hawk and Jaguar all needed remedial work in that area. An element of remanufacturing would have been unavoidable in any case in any future upgrade programme during the 1980s.