Shawn,
I was looking more toward the process than the aircraft. The procurement process has morphed into a monster that generates multi-thousand page detailed Request For Proposals (RFPs) requiring overwhelming levels of detail and technical data. Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson describes this evolution quite succinctly in his biography, Kelly - More than My Share of it All, when comparing the development processes for the C-130A and the C-5A. In his book he describes how a C-130 was required to transport the company’s response to the C-5 RFP while the C-130 response fit in a single loose leaf type binder. In retrospect, how much less costly would it have been for New Zealand to procure SH-2Gs directly from the US Government through the FMS process.