Yak,
Also worth noting is the reality that while we really do want to be able to play on Day 1, how many times in the life of an aircraft does it actually play on Day 1?
Most aircraft (and ships) operate in an envrionment where they need to bolt on as much as they can and drone around in a relatively permissive environment (with an IADS sporting SA-XX times many plus mucho 4th gen+ adversaries).
They burn up 1000's of hours in full-spectrum sight of the 'enemy' doing great work like Harrier and then Tornado did in Afghanistan; Iraq; Bosnia etc.
We are buying an F-35 that will only be live-flying for 50% of the pilots career.
I used to fly 20+ hours per month and was mandated to do less around 1 hour per month in the sim.
A JSF pilot will fly for no more than 12 hours per month and do 12 hours in the sim. At least, that's the plan based on flying hour cost and the live/synthetic training balance aspiration.
We need 'cheap' aircraft that can drone around policing the air and actually make some noise whilst delivering 100% of the effect that is required for 99% of missions any fighter will ever fly. All of a sudden, a 'hi/lo' mix of aircraft seems like a cost effective idea.
The alternative is we give the enemy a networked i-Pad so they can watch us in the sim thus letting them know how much we're going to kick their ass when we have enough cash to go flying in an actual aircraft.