This one was exceptionally scrutinized. Complete with things like fully cleared non-government fairness monitor to do oversight even of requirements writing. Not even the AG has insinuated what you are here.
And the model used by FFCP is actually being adopted by other projects specifically because it was so stringent on avoiding bias.
On the technical portion, the bidders were given a few mission sets. And they were given an open hand. They were allowed to design the force package, pick the weapons loadout and accessories (like pods) to meet the mission. All they had to do was price in everything they did. All the pods they used. The number of aircraft. Etc. No surprise that the 5th Gen won. It takes a lot fewer F-35s than 4th gen to do the same tasks. And this is actually wanted the bidders wanted. None of them wanted a line by line spec comparison. That would favour the F-35. They argued that there's ways they could overcome the F-35s advantages. So the project designed an evaluation process that gave them a free hand.
