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They're different planes with different optimizations being made. Airplanes are one giant set of tradeoffs.

Not really. The main limiter for supercruise in the F-35 is sub-par stealth coatings that unlike the F-22's cannot handle the heat. Otherwise it could supercruise, maybe with some engine tweaks.

Things like cost, politics, etc are also part of the optimizations being made for these planes.

You can see it that way. It's really more politics than cost in this case though.

From an engineering perspective local political optimization of a national project is what I would call ineptitude. But you can call it by another name.

I don't disagree. But it is what it is, and part of how things get done these days for better or for worse.

That's absolutely true, and it definitely matters when you're designing something that will see productive use for the benefit of the people paying for it, but it's not obvious that that's the case here.

Hear me out...what if we could get both contracts?!

Because ideally all supercruise does is allow enemy planes to get closer to an F-35 firing solution faster.