>I think being able to focus was a big part of it. The F-35 (and F-32) is a 'kitchen sink' of a plane: multi-purpose sounds great in theory, but rarely works out in practice. Especially if you try shoehorning VTOL into the picture.
if you look into the history - F-35 started as VTOL, ie. Yak-141, as Lockheed didn't have any VTOL and needed a response to Boeing/Harrier - onto which the "kitchen sink" of everything else was shoehorned/bolted-on. The Yak-141 was never intended and never imagined to be a good fighter plane or a good attack plane, etc., its primary and the only raison d'etre was VTOL as USSR/Russia just hasn't been capable of having real aircraft carriers.
if you look into the history - F-35 started as VTOL, ie. Yak-141, as Lockheed didn't have any VTOL and needed a response to Boeing/Harrier - onto which the "kitchen sink" of everything else was shoehorned/bolted-on. The Yak-141 was never intended and never imagined to be a good fighter plane or a good attack plane, etc., its primary and the only raison d'etre was VTOL as USSR/Russia just hasn't been capable of having real aircraft carriers.