716 were built, only 281 remain in inventory.
Many have in fact timed out, been rendered unservicable or otherwise have had to be retired. There’s something like 30 unflyable examples on display to give you some idea.
“716 were built, only 281 remain in inventory.”
OK. So now I’m putting you in the hypothetical position of a pentagon USAF 3-star general and your job is to balance the budget priorities for the USAF. $48 million to re-wing and update (say 50%) of your 281 flyable A-10 airframes is chickenfeed. An easy ‘Yes’. But then you have to balance that with the needs to replace a big chunk of your F-15 & F-16 fleets with F-35’s. And THAT gets you very quickly into the training of future pilots. Each fighter pilot is going to cost you about $10 million before he hits his/her first operational squadron. 281 X $10M over say 5 years. Then there’s spare engines, fuel, training budgets. Again it’s not a huge percentage of the budget, but it is still a single-mission aircraft.
To put it into a sports analogy — would you trade your 1st round pick in 2020 for Tom Brady? The A-10 is the Tom Brady of ground attack aircraft. But it’s old and there isn’t a lot of mileage left even if you are a huge fan.