Don’t tell the government. Excellent airborne weapons platforms like the F-16 and F/A-18 could have been upgraded with canards, thrust vectoring exhaust, and the shape changed with external panels to make them more stealthy for a tiny fraction of producing the F022 and F-35.
Nothing on the public’s roster of aircraft to come (including the F35), or in the past (the two planes you mentioned), will ever compete with the F22.
It’s safe to say that the F22 was the pinnacle of US military technology, and the compromise F35 design is testament to that fact. We are already going down hill.
“Don’t tell the government. Excellent airborne weapons platforms like the F-16 and F/A-18 could have been upgraded with canards, thrust vectoring exhaust, and the shape changed with external panels to make them more stealthy for a tiny fraction of producing the F022 and F-35.”
In the military, you don’t get promoted for running a cheap upgrade program. You get promoted by running a big, expensive, important technology-bending program. Also, politicians get lobbied for money and favors and such lobbying generates campaign cash.