chuck4 said:
Nose pointing helps with instantaneous turn rates, No? Instantaneous turn rates seems more important in shaking off a 60G missile with high head-on approach speed than sustain turn rate.
This is only true for attempts to outmaneuver short-range missiles (if and when it works), however sustained turn rate is far more important in BVR.
Missiles have small wings and rarely have sustaining motors. If a fighter can change its heading the missile will have to make a much larger correction (since the missiles is using a lead approach - and any heading change made by the fighter moves the location "where it would be when the missile intercepts it" considerably more than the actual change in course of the fighter). If the fighter can maintain a high speed while making these heading changes the change in intercept trajectory will be even greater.
As a result, the ability to maintain speed during moderate supersonic turns can massively reduce the effective range of BVR missiles (regardless of sensor capabilities). The PAK-FA is engineered specifically for maintaining supersonic turns with this goal in mind.
The F-35, as a medium fighter with relatively limited total thrust and limited maximum speed is already at a considerable disadvantage for this purpose (when compared to any heavy fighter). Any gains to the thrust-to-weight ratio will help compensate for this. Relying on off-boresight missile capabilities and removing in order TVC to save weight makes perfect sense.