The F22 has supercruise which help protect it from heat seekers, the F35 doesn’t and will light up the sensors in after burner. The F-35 probably should have been a smaller, single-engine version of the F22 IMO, with vectored thrust and all the goodies.
The heat seekers see the F-22 exhaust just fine without after burner. They can see the inlet too.
F-22 is a great plane, but you have to fight it like a F-22, that is to shoot your enemy before he sees you. If you wait, then you lose a big part of your advantage.
The unstable planes like Gripen or Typhoon have some advantages in close. F-22 drivers should know that, and avoid their advantages. Never give a sucker an even break.
If lockheed candidate was what you say, they would have lost the contest. That isn’t what the requirements were.
Look, We wanted to get a big part of the newly free world to not buy Russian (ex soviet) planes. The F-35 gave a lot of people a chance to get a first class plane when all they had previously had was Soviet crap.
Industrial policy drove the strategy. Weapons design makes the F-35 superior for its role, and keeps its buyers involved in the non-russian markets.