The F-35 has probably suffered a lot from the near cancellation of the F-22. No, the F-22 was not cancelled but not nearly as many were procured as planned. That fact probably caused service planners and project managers to demand more from the F-35 than they originally intended as that it was going to carry more of the load than originally intended.
Like I said, the F-35 was originally supposed to be the "low" side of the high/low mix with the F-22. Now, it is going to be arguably as expensive if not more expensive per copy and not nearly as well suited as an actual fighter and too damned expensive to risk at CAS.
The Air Force should scale back on F-35s to a few hundred and build F-16s as cheap bomb trucks to take up the slack.
