Given the experience of Crete in 1941 was the decision to cancel plans to invade Malta coloured by the experience of Crete in 1941 , did this bitter victory unduely influence a decision to assult Matla , an assult which should have taken place sooner rather than not at all ?
Could a second airborne invasion have succeded without the large scale losses sustained on Crete ?
Would there have been such a need to reply on a large airborne drop given that the Royal Navy was so badly stretched and Malta was so isolated ?

With Malta removed would Rommel's supply problems have been answered or would the attrition of Russia destroyed what might have proved to be a more fruitful region for German expansion ?

For me Germany should have followed the proposal of making the Med. an " Axis lake". Germany's oil problems been solved with much less risk.
Turkey would have been under sustained political pressure to join the Axis and Russia could quite possibly have been threatened from the South.
Churchill's might have been pressured to resign as Prime Minster and England could have been removed from the war had Malta been removed in 41.

This is all what if , but had Germany's war aims been less motivated towards a war with Stalin things could have been very different.