The more you buy, the less the unit cost. Its sounds expensive because you're dividing the cost of 23 years worth of R&D over 250 aircraft. To make it worthwhile, you need to buy a lot more. Frankly, its just plain dumb to develop only buy a handful of aircraft when you have a 25+ year acquisition cycle.
BTW--I came into the AF in 1985. At that time, they were doing dem val on the FA-22 (then it was called the Advanced Tactical Fighter). I will likely retire next year and they STILL haven't fielded the plane--think about that.