A good piece, albeit from a left-leaning organization.
Spey was part of the design/testing teams for the F-16 (and F-16XL) program, I believe. He also had a hand in the design of the A-10. While he leaves out a lot of detail on the cost overrun/procurement stats, I’m inclined to take his design analysis critique seriously.
I also think that the idea of a supersonic aircraft for close air support is ridiculous. I talked to a couple of A-10 pilots last summer; they call the F/A-18s in that role “lawn darts”, because they fly the same way when hit (into the ground) and are about as accurate (pray the pointy end goes where you want it to) when it comes to CAS missions.
The A-10 pilots you were talking to were full of...stuff.
With targeting pods, the fast movers can drop bombs MORE accurately from 30K than an A-10 at 300’ AGL. And with Rover, they can ‘see’ the same target the TACP is seeing, with comments from the TACP. That beats the hell out of trying to figure it out while in a 10 deg dive, even at A-10 speeds.
All of which is why the A-10C has targeting pod capability.