Well VTOL is one thing but if every design is using the exact same VTOL engines and layout, even when they're shaped like fighter planes from WWII, it rubs me the wrong way. It's mostly that last one as the culprit: There's literally no need for that shape. Realism may not be your goal, but anyone who knows anything about fighter aircraft will question the utility of messing up a good Spitfire with those bulky fans. VTOL on a fighter should only be as a utility, since you're sacrificing other things like weight, fuel consumption, mechanical reliability, and in this case aerodynamics and therefore speed.
That very plane without those fans would do far better than its counterpart in everything except landing vertically. This is all because you gave it 'wings'. The other designs above are excusable, because you have a zeppelin and a ship that doesn't have obvious wings or "lifting surfaces." Not so with that last one.
Take the Yak-141 for example:
The engines that lift it use the main engine in back which tilts, and small engines inside the fuselage up front.
Its wings are clean and smooth. Even though this VTOL system eats up room inside the jet, it still relies on speed and wings to fly, and fly efficiently.
TL;DR - If you insist on using a "normal looking plane design" that has wings, a tail, and so on, then find more creative ways of giving it VTOL power.
There are plenty of examples to draw inspiration from. For instance,
landing the plane on its back and taking off/landing with its nose in the air,
having the engines that push it pivot to direct thrust downwards, and
having engines within the body of the plane that can give it vertical thrust at any time.
(Call me crazy, but the plane I thought I saw looked pretty good to me, too).
