Armor or a purpose-built naval Spitfire?

If forced to choose, would an armored flight deck or Supermarine's original naval Spitfire matter more?

The armored flight deck, because it reliably preserves the carrier while the fighter remains vulnerable to engine-allocation politics.

The armored flight deck preserves the carrier even when aircraft procurement fails. A naval Spitfire would improve fighter performance, while still competing with the Royal Air Force for scarce Merlin engines. The ideal fleet would have both a resilient ship and a modern fighter. A larger Fleet Air Arm returned to naval control earlier might have managed enough procurement cycles to secure that aircraft before the war. If a naval fighter were already in production, the Admiralty could plausibly argue for it as Britain's second mass-produced fighter before RAF types became entrenched.