I was working with Nuke on fixing errors in a VF-1 Valkyrie model and had a thought--against giant aliens like the Zentraedi, the VF-1 Valkyrie would be
inferior to a decent ground attack aircraft without any transformation ability. Zentraedi are large, bulky ground targets. Large, bulky ground targets do not fear anything more than they fear ground attack aircraft. The Zentraedi cannot really hide on Earth--they are far too large. And they are made of meat, so if they can make shoulder-fired weapons that can pierce their body armor, a squad of regular infantry with an anti-tank weapon could kill a dismounted Zentraedi.
So they ought to have just built an A-10 like ground attack plane, a heavy anti-armor infantry weapon, and a (non-variable) air superiority fighter to cover them. Each would do its job better than the Valkyrie, be less expensive, and exist in larger numbers.
Oh, there I go, applying
logic to an anime series with giant robots and Chinese pop singers defeating alien civilizations again...
But if you really want to argue Rule of Cool, here's what I think: Swing-wing fighters are cooler than giant robots, and will always be cooler than giant robots.
And if the Zentraedi had any common sense they'd send in miclonized infantry as well as battlepods. You can't hold territory if you can't fit in the places you're supposed to be patrolling.
