I am not even arguing. My favorite aircraft of all time is the F1-11, which was absolutely multi-role and started its life as a nuke delivery concept.

That said, it is a slider. On one side is "Fighter" and on the other side are ... other roles. The more the design compromises the fighter role, the better the aircraft gets at other things and the worse it is as a fighter.

It turns out that designs can get some ground attack capability and still be a great air superiority fighter; which can have tactical uses. It is great value. However I strongly feel that to excel in other roles dramatically compromises the air superiority capability.

None the less, my point is that supersonic air superiority fighters take the most amount of maintenance dollars per hour of flight time. It is cool to be able to drop two bombs half the world away in 20 hours (or whatever) but these days we send a cruse missile or a drone.

Not only that we now have the option of spreading total capability over two or three aircraft in an operation. One aircraft can be a spotter for a drone that can shoot missiles from over the horizon. New options are opening up with this kind of tactics.

Admit it guy, we both think sticking VTOL to a F-35 is a boondoggle. Scope creep is bullshit.