The problem with that mentality is that the AAS platform isn't in need of a "speed transformation". Sikorsky answered a call no one placed for this particular contract, and it will undoubtedly cost far more than $15 million a copy.
With OTH (as has been discussed ad nauseum in the V22 threads), the speed of a tiltrotor was key to that paradigm.
Recall Sikorsky used to show marketing videos of the X2 (before they started trying to shoehorn it into something for AAS) escorting V22s in flight in airplane mode. Seems the timing of everything is a bit off for those chaps, and offering the S-97 for AAS was just what was on the table at the time.