Would you have produced the 3 versions just as they are today or how would you have changed the specs?
If I was in charge
and could have over ridden Congress, yes, I would have taken a different approach, especially if I had the benefit of hindsight. For starters I would have stuck to the paradigm of separate A/F-X, JAST, and ASTOVL programs, with A/F-X defining the non-STOVL airframes, ASTOVL defining the STOVL airframe, and JAST defining the systems to be integrated into all the airframes. And A/F-X would almost certainly have been (or at least included) a two-engine, two-crew layout.
But it's rather easy to say what might have been. And totally pointless. It seems to me the point now is so to focus an what we have and make the most of it. And by that I mean what we
really have, and not the cripple that a few folks insist we have.