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All the questions you ask are fair...and I'm sure being accounted for. These drone programs have all latched onto the descriptor "attritable." I'm not sure where "attritable" ends and "expendable" starts. They are targeting low-cost drones at less than $1 million each. Tomahawk cruise missiles cost just under $1 million each. So maybe the drones can lower the cost of warfare by bringing the delivery system home for re-use. Or you can field a lot more of them than cruise missiles.

Most importantly, do you want the dragon to eat us?

just continuing to think a little about this...

Drones will save pilot lives. So drones will earn "their pay," right there, though I don't know if pilots themselves will feel that way, relegated to desk work.

J/K, I can't conceive of a day good pilots aren't going to be needed.

Today's drones can be flown by a teamster with a joystick and monitor from thousands of miles away.

Highly skilled real pilots appear poised to advance to bigger and better things.

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a Jupiter or Mars

Nooo, we don't want to be eaten by that old dragon! So that may be what swarming really brings to the table for us: To hold the Chinese tyrant at bay and put the fear of God in him.