Let's try to share info without insulting one another.

For quite awhile the USAF has bought in to the force-multiplier philosophy - in part due to high personnel costs. Whether that will really work as a general case has yet to really be proven and may be entirely dependent on the situation at issue (See Kipling, Rudyard, Arithmetic on the Frontier) But there is no question the high end stuff is expensive. An F-35 HELMET costs $400k and a lot of personnel time tweaking it.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ins...met-facts.html

Is it worth it - relative to cheaper but a larger quantity of less capable systems? I don't know, and like I said, very likely situation dependent. Does it eventually get to the point that things are too expensive and too few to risk in combat at all? Probably. Extremes on both ends of the spectrum tend to be less cost effective.