In those two links you posted, in one of them the guy raves about the sensors of the F-35. In nearly every positive review I've seen, that seems to be the case. Everyone talks about how much of a game changer all the sensors are. They often say that they can shoot down other planes before anyone even knows where they are and well before they would be vulnerable themselves. In short, they say that dogfighting doesn't matter and that the real work is done BVR.
Of course, that begs the question. If all that BVR stuff and sensor stuff is truly the cat's meow, why not simply build a stealthy aircraft the size of a jetliner and load it up with a hundred AMRAMs or whatever? Obviously, maneuvering does matter some because instead of doing what I said above, we've built a fighter sized aircraft. Except we've built one that is such a dog that if maneuvering ever does become really important, it is likely to be at a disadvantage. It didn't have to be that way. The F-22 is superb in all aspects.
