I know strictly for SOF purposes having dedicated and cheap aircraft like that would be nice. SOF tested out OV10 set up for CAS in Iraq a few years back and it did pretty well from what I read.
For a big war they'd be worthless pretty much, but for the types of missions that our various SOF elements do around the world a dedicated group of airplanes organized along the lines of the 160th would be nice IMO. As for the airframe I have no idea what would be the best one.
OV-10's were in over their heads 30 years ago. During Desert Storm they deployed 12 aircraft, lost 2 (16%) and flew 482 Sorties and that was in an environment with a lot of less capable MANPADs today and there was an aluminum overcast of us carrying HARMS begging for a SAM radar to turn on so we could shoot it.
Just like the COIN/ Light attack -
how much of your defense budget is worth an aircraft that can only operate in a very small area of your mission scenarios? 
