The F-16 concept versus its rivals

I am currently reading Mike spick`s book titled “the great book of modern warplanes” in it i have read the basic structural features of each aircraft.

He does explain the fact the tiny F-16 has a chin inlet-forebody design concept that actually reduces the local intake AoA to a lower AoA than that of what the F-16 is experiencing at flight during high AoA maneuvres.

The General Dynamics team also studied several different air intake configurations before settling on the final air intake located underneath the nose. The ventral location for the intake was chosen to minimize the sensitivity of airflow into the engine to high angles of attack. At a 20-degree AoA, the local flow direction to a ventral intake was only ten degrees below datum, as compared to 35 degrees in the case of side-mounted inlets.

source http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article4.html

The LEX also does contribute to lower lift drag ratio reducing trim drag while also does create lift enducing vortices.
The Fuselage-Wing blending increases fuel carring capacity and lift.

It also says that the F-16 is built mostly of aluminum alloys and has much less composite materials than the F-18 or titanium than the F-15 and F-14, the F-16 in that sense is comparable to the MiG-29.
The gradual penetration of composites can be easily seen on the teen-series fighters.

Grumman F-14 – boron/epoxy vertical fins.

McDonnell Douglas F-15 – 1.2 per cent composites: Fins, stabilators, rudders – boron/epoxy, speedbrakes – graphite/epoxy.

GD F-16 – 2.7 per cent composites.

MDC F-18 – 10 per cent graphite/epoxy composites: Wing skins, trailing edges, flaps, speedbrake, stabilators, vertical tails, rudders, covers and access doors.

source http://www.ausairpower.net/AADR-Composites-1980.html

New alloys, materials, and processing technologies, developed since these aircraft were originally designed, are being used to produce better components with significantly lower life-cycle costs. The bulkheads and ventral fins on the F-16 fighter are good examples to illustrate this trend. One of the F-16’s three bulkheads supports the vertical stabilizer and typically fails before its specified service life of 8,000 hours. Its material is being replaced with the aluminum-lithium alloy 2097, which has 3 times the fatigue life, 5 percent lower density, and 7 percent higher stiffness than the original material, alloy 2024. Because the replacement alloy is more fatigue resistant, it decreases the frequency and cost of downtime for bulkhead replacement, at an estimated cost savings of over $76.5 million for the F-16 fleet (Austin et al., 1999).

The ventral fins located under the aft section of the F-16’s fuselage provide added stability during tight, high-speed turns, and are subject to high stresses from severe buffeting and turbulence. The conventional aluminum-alloy fins fail in less than 400 hours of flight time, and the material is being replaced with a new metal-matrix composite (MMC), an aluminum alloy reinforced with silicon-carbide particles, which is about 50 percent more stiff than monolithic aluminum. The life of the MMC fins is projected to exceed 8,000 hours — more than 17 times the life of the original fins — at an approximate savings of $20.7 million (Austin et al., 1999).

source http://www.asce.org/community/construcmat/nae_smco.cfm

It looks like the F-16 is slightly more agile than the Mirage 2000.

my main question is is the Viper still a good aircraft in the F-35 and F-18E era and can it still beat the J-10 and Su-35BM?