The U.S. military, with the exceptions of the Sherman Tank and F-16, has almost always chosen quality over quantity.
The original decision to procure the F-16 was as a "low cost fighter" supplement to the F-15 fleet. However that has been overshadowed by 40 years of reality.
In practice, the F-16 has been an outstanding performer far exceeding the original design expectation. It has performed so well it's systems were used to define the avionics and flight control systems baseline requirements of the next generation of fighters, the F-22 and F-35.
The author was also a little harsh regarding the F-111. The TFX concept was ugly and the F-35 is doing nothing to dispel the perception. Robert Strange McNamara masterminded the bad idea, one among his many. However as the 'Vark matured it was the one manned bomber system the soviets feared. They tried to negotiate it's demise during arms limitation talks.
Very true ref the 111. As a tactical bomber and as a strategic bomber it excelled and freaked out the world for a while. And the Soviets built their own copy, but it wasn’t as nearly good.
And back to the F-35. Despite its very weak power to weight ratio, astonishingly it has a higher wingloading than an F-104! This thing is dead if it ever has to fight one inch outside of its narrow tech performance envelope. IE,,the real world.