I bet this jet did exactly what the military never let anyone do, that is change too many systems at the same time in an attempt to streamline the design and reduce cost.
Back when this tech was considered amazing, they would not care about making a larger plane as to mix older parts with newer parts in the areas they did not feel confident about, but because of the radar size issue and the strong unverified reliability assurance claims that have been the norm in an attempt to greenlight fast progress..
I think its kind of like if we got rid of desktops and laptops in the computer world (which are a metric for reliability) and just went pure cell phone electronics to reduce size.
When you follow the F35 program, the kind of problems that were being investigated, reminded me more of a failed smartphone/videogame release then a standard military program. Then of course when you realize what is going on you jump back to the latest 'reasonable' design, the F15. Kind of like saying 'fuck working on this tablet, time to go install this on a desk top'. We have all probobly gone away from shady 'hot and popular' hardware like circa 2010 mini-laptops because of various faults that made is unpleasant to use.
I recall the tech trends prediction people were making some really fantastic claims about substandard hardware back 10 years ago, and the majority of people I know ended up seeing things as a 'fad' rather then the future.
How many technology platforms have been considered "product killers", "game changers", and so forth.. that ended up being geek connivance items with a high upkeep/skill requirement. This kind of shit was touted to turn your grandma into 7of9 when you bought it lol. I call it ultra aggressive marketing of miniaturization.
And when you have a lab you realize that having a old computer that easily interfaces with stuff is acceptable, reasonable, cost efficient and thee is little reason to try to aggressively eliminate them. Slowly you end up getting good community made interface patches that let you move through forward through the technological timeline.. but this is more like a luxury then a priority. You got lucky when you managed to put a SSD inside of a old scope.. its not a requirement.