I think you've missed an important point here. They were developing multiple aircraft, and picking the best. They weren't putting all their eggs in one basket.
Despite being a Communist country, the USSR followed the "capitalist" practice of having competing design bureaus, which did no manufacturing. A winning design was turned over to a manufacturing plant. As a result, they developed some excellent aircraft.
The F-16 came as a result of a competitive flyoff. We haven't done such a flyoff since then. The F-22 and the F-35 were selected on the basis of a paper competition.
For better or worse, the F-35 will be produced and declared "operational." There are too many careers and egos invested in it to back out of what may have been a bad decision.
“The F-16 came as a result of a competitive flyoff. We haven’t done such a flyoff since then. The F-22 and the F-35 were selected on the basis of a paper competition.”
That statement is not true.If you dislike the F23 you would have really hated the Boeing version of their Joint strike fighter.
Not only was it ugly it had to have parts removed to even try in a short take off and landing mode.
There was a movie about the prototype production,tryouts and selection of the Joint Strike fighter and I found it to be very interesting.Maybe you will be too since it was produced by PBS.
I think the total was fighter of the century or something like it.
But the Boeing Jet was a real dog.
The video I mentioned earlier was Battle of the X-Planes.You can find it ion YouTube.