Efforts must be made to produce the best fighter platforms possible at a fixed point in time. Just like in computer technology, if you stop to actually produce and manufacture a product for sale, you fall behind in innovation. But if you fail to produce anything you have no product to sell, and no income to fund further innovation. In computer-land, this is inconvenient, but in warfare-land, if you don’t compromise and get a platform in the sky, your best ideas may belong to your conqueror. ...
Like every other aircraft that we have fielded, this design will evolve over time (and money). My concern is that when fielding an aircraft to do everything, you fail to get an aircraft to do anything well.