I recall the book was critical of the bass-ackwards process by which attempted commonality ended up as a separate program, and of the fact that the rosy promises (the Hornet was presented as a combination of a mini-F-15 and a Tornado, back in the day) were not fulfilled. It turned out all right in the C/D version.
The problem is one of magnitude. If it was one loused-up program it would be one thing, but this is now not only the entire future of TacAir but the future of combat air power, because I really don't see how anything like the current procurement plan can be executed without deferring LRS-B, UCAV or whatever else comes next into the 2030s.
"Cost as an independent variable" was one of the doctrinal fictions that got us into this mess. It was applied chiefly in the 1996-2000 phase of defining the joint operational requirement, but the unfortunate fact was that a very large percentage of the cost was baked-in by the design of the prototypes, and the pursuit of "cost reduction" resulted in taking on high-risk approaches to manufacturing technology and subsystems (see Boeing 787), many of which have not panned out.