Originally Posted by
AOD_PapaPnut
Your logic is sound and conclusions accurate.
Designing a single anything to meet multiple mission objectives requires compromises. The challenge comes from the economics of modern weapons system design, development, and deployment. The F-86 (late '40s design) and F-4 (late'50s design, introduced in 1960) were developed in an entirely different economic environment and cost of development relative to modern weapons systems. While there chronic socioeconomic problems (hunger, unemployment, lack of access to adequate medical treatment etc) it's not economically viable or socially responsible to develop narrowly defined mission specific systems.
Could mutliple better single mission objective systems have been developed? Absolutely, but at what cost? I absolutely agree with you and do believe our insatiable need to have the most advance technology as opposed to the most practical has lead to some suboptimal results.