[PIF]

They’d love this plane for living up to original mission specs.
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But it cannot ever meet the original specs! Which is most of the point of the test requirements. They might use the tech in some new jet, but they have mostly gotten all they need in that area. What they need is to figure out how to manufacture crystalline jet engine turbine blades.

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The likely avenue is to get kicked in the nuts through a Pearl Harbor-style attack by a peer/near-peer competitor.
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One that takes out the Pentagon brass where most of the problems lie. Low cost, survivable, effective are not words permitted in the planning rooms.

[Zhang Fei]

[Low cost, survivable, effective are not words permitted in the planning rooms.]

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That’s a unicorn like good, cheap and fast (pick any two). Completely unattainable without a very expensive revolutionary leap involving large cash outlays on R&D. Which is what the F-35 is all about.

[Zhang Fei]

[But it cannot ever meet the original specs!]

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The basic question is who you’re gonna believe - Pentagon bureaucrats with no skin in the game, or defense evaluators in countries that could get overrun if the platform chosen over others currently available (e.g. Gripen, Eurofighter, Rafale, Su-35, F-15, F-18, et al) isn’t the best they can purchase on the market. Pentagon bureaucrats want the Death Star. Foreign customers want the best they can currently get. As of now - after numerous test drives involving other platforms - the choice is clear, and it’s not the runners-up.