Gadzooks, fella, it took me a while... 
to realize my post was from 14 months ago!
However, being just as proud an American as anyone, I realize that if there are aviation ideas and concepts from the past (even the Nazis, the Soviets or them dead-gum Barbary Pirates) that will help in applications of today, there is not any shame in using them. I also realize that one can independently come up with an aviation idea or concept that was arrived at by someone else in the past.
Luft '46 shows a lot of the German aviation concepts that came around during the Nazi rule. Yet most of them were too advanced for the technology and materials of the time, thank heavens! Andernfalls würden wir alle Deutsches sprechen.
Jack Northrop was dead set on proving his flying wing concept from the 1930s right up to the day the Pentagon canceled the B-49 project in 1950 and had the 13 aircraft built or near completion all cut up and destroyed on the spot. Yet if one looks at the current B-2, it has exactly the same wing length as the B-49. An old idea was finally proved when the technology and materials came about.
Don't know if I even came close to answering your question, but I do not think it 'pathetic' if we use some old concept with modern technology and materials to build an aircraft that will defend the USA.
However, it would be 'pathetic' for someone to, let's say, build a Model-T Ford and claim it all an original idea. I don't think anyone at Darpa is claiming the Switchblade UAV is a stand alone, one for the ages, completely original concept thought up right on the spot in their hidden offices deep in the bowels of the Pentagon!
Now that the required intelligent part of the day is over... 
it's party-time! Time to kick back, watch the old Duke kick some hinney on the tube and start drinking beer!