I've never heard of Register Magazine but the bloke is the Editor and he is a commentator on various matters (I read his bio after Stobie's comments)
He is an ex serving RN officer so must have some appreciation of naval matters.
The point he made and I agree with is that the RN has a long history of bringing ships into service fitted "for but not with" and it takes an inordinate amount of time and expense (in addition to the original cost) to bring them up to acceptable levels.
Daring was in commission for 3 years before she became useful.
As for specific weapons, he has gone over the top but he does have a valid point re The missile system. Being in service with the French doesn't exactly prove the system in the RN, different sensor and combat system and a total system integration package virtually creates a new capability as the 50% weapon failure rate during initial testing implies.
If I seem overly harsh with Page it's from previous articles, in that he's an established track record of writing about things from a very peculiar slant. One frequent rant he'd go off on was that the RN were buying "the wrong type of ships" which distilled down to "it'd be cheaper to buy a container ship and put the sensors and missiles on that" instead of using some terribly expensive frigate things, which as I'm sure you're aware makes little sense as the major cost of a warship is in fact the sensors, CMS, weapons systems etc.
I read his comments on Aster as driving more at the missile itself than the systems but it's worth noting that multiple firings were carried out from Longbow, a trials barge with a full radar and CMS system which was purchased for the exact purpose of testing the whole shebang end to end. Aster is basically a sea going SAMP-T and they've been test fired since the 1990's against Mirache drones, Longbow fired off a number of missiles, uncovering a production issue which was fairly easily corrected.
Daring firing a missile in test is obviously a part of commissioning and useful but all the complex work had been executed in full several years earlier using a full replica of the affected systems so I think he's being unfair here.
As to surface to surface weaponry, the ship the 45's are replacing had none - Type 45 is an air warfare ship first and foremost and like the Type 42 before them, their surface warfare capability came from a helicopter firing missiles at range. Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased to see Harpoon on four of them now but slating them for not having a capability not required by CONOPS seems unfair.
Page also flags them for not having Phalanx (incorrect) and as Rob notes, testing vs supersonic targets happened the year after, and in any event, a block 2 Aster has been demonstrated against an SRBM simulator much earlier.
I'm all for a spot of healthy self examination here but Page usually writes with a somewhat aggrieved agenda.