Back to the OT:Super Hornet performance. It was known since it's development the Super Hornet would not have the capability of the Eurofighter. In fact, the most capable version of the SH studied was the canard/arrow wing variant which itself only possessed 90% of the performance of the Eurofighter.
As I've said before, all things being equal, a conventional tail aircraft has better high AOA control than a canard aircraft in certain parts of the envelope. The main reason for going with canards is you can make a smaller airframe for a given mission then a conventionally tailed aircraft, which means lower weight and, therefore, lower cost.
As for the F-22 vs the YF-22, don't forget they made major changes to the wing and tail design, such as reducing the L.E. sweep and increasing the AR for the wing of the production version. They also trimmed some weight by getting rid of the separate airbrake and going with a system similar to the YF-23's that uses the primary flight control surfaces to create aerobraking. Also, in Picarillo's book on the ATF program, he states that the minimum fuel fraction required for efficient supercruise is .25 and that the production version of he Raptor would be just under that
What I find interesting is how the production version of the F-23 would have had half shock cone inlets instead of the 3D oblique shock inlets and how they moved the engines closer together.
