That actually has way more to do with who the pilots are. Aerial combat in the last 30 years between western aircraft and Russian builds has essentially been our pilots and Israeli pilots VS an assortment of middle eastern pilots with a combat training program that doesn’t even exist in any real sense we would recognize.
If the Syrian Air Force flew F-15s, and the Israelis were in Mig-29s, the result would still have been exactly the same. 81 to 0 or whatever it was. Same for our Air Force against the Iraqi Air Force. Same for the USN against the Libyans.
The record has far more to do with the quality level of our pilots and their training levels than with Airframes.
Now we are taking the ultimate gamble on that, by building the F-35 which is less capable that anything else in the sky, but which is crewed by our pilots and is part of a high end integrated air force system.
What the Israelis did to the Syrians over the Bakka Valley in 1982 was simply amazing. The IAF shot down about 80 Syrian MiGs in a matter of a couple of days without a single loss to themselves.