Though I agree with you that all government agencies are political machines which have evolved to protect their bureaucrats; the F-35 was simply not designed to be a lightweight low-cost fighter. Comparing the F-35 to the F-16 is about as useful as comparing the F-105 to the F-86 (, which is to say not very informative).

Boyd thought that even the F-16 was overweight and over-sized (and he may have been correct).