“Fact is, the USAF fighter mafia has been trying to rid themselves of the A-10 since it was fielded.”
Careful with the term “Fighter Mafia”. The original use of that term was for some Pentagon analysts put together by USAF Colonel John Boyd. One of them, Pierre Spey, was instrumental in the A-10 program.
The original “Fighter Mafia” favored relatively simple, straight forward aircraft designs optimized for a single mission, ie. A2A, Ground Attack, Interdiction.
The F-15, F-16 & A-10 were products of their work (although the F-16 morphed into a multi-mission strike fighter).
I’m referring to the 5 sided building types more interested in empire building than warfighting.
This is why the F-35 is a failure — it is hyped up as being good at everything, but in reality it ends up being less than adequate for anything.
(This is also why it is being pushed so hard: because to field such a deficient, vision-less system would guarantee much in the way of time, energy, and money be poured into it — just like the M-16 has had tons of monies [and energies] poured into it to cover its design failures*.)
* Granted, from what I hear the original Stoner design was much better, but was screwed up by a group adapting it to military use.