When I was at the NCO academy I did a speech on the B-2 bomber, and I was a big-time advocate of the plane.
In hindsight, I'm glad they only built 20 or so of them. One reason is that one B-2 can do a tremendous amount of damage. Another reason is that supposedly it is a maintenance headache keeping the skin stealthy. As a former maintenance puke, I don't like maintenance headaches. With modern technology, we should (in my mind, anyway) be able to produce something like that that isn't a maintenance headache. Not to mention, since it's so damned expensive, losing even one is a disaster.
We ought to be able to produce more bang for the buck, but maybe you engineers out there will tell me it's not quite that simple.
The B-2 was a hell of a piece of technology, and it certainly did its job in development by scaring the bejesus out of the Soviets. That said, I’d say it was already on its way to being obsolete before it flew its first combat mission. It’s quickly getting to the point where there’s not much a B-2 can do that advanced cruise missiles can’t do much less expensively.
The F-22 is a different story, I’d say, since I don’t know of anything on the horizon that will adequately replace manned aircraft in the air superiority role. That said, no one’s even close to what we already have in the air, and there’s a strong case to be made that the F-22 money would be better spent on training and equipment for that part of the armed forces we use the most - the poor bloody infantry.
It’s a tough call. We don’t want to fall behind in air superiority technology, but at the same time, there might be some higher priorities we need to address.