If you look at the raw specs maybe. Grippen has a specific role which is starting and landing anywhere and being easy to support, both in manpower and materials. You can land a Grippen on any short stretch of paved ground, get it rearmed and ready to fly again in half an hour with 5 people. Whereas higher spec american jets like the F16 need very long, clean and straight runways, lots of support infrastructure, lots of personnel and have a long turnaround time. With the likes of F35 and F22 this is even worse.

Also, I believe reading raw plane specs these days is more like counting CPU GHz. It does not really matter anymore.

What matters these days is the cost of buying/flying/maintenance, software platform and what missiles they can launch.

Gripen has modular upgradable software, and supports modern Europe-made missiles such as Taurus and Meteor.

As other poster said, Gripen is perfect for a defensive role as a missile launch platform. It's not supposed to go 1:1 with F-35:s, but to counter the Russian air capability - and mostly in a defensive role. F-35:s were really great when they came with larger techno-military-political ecosystem but now the trust in that ecosystem is shattered.

The grippen looks amazing what are you talking about? Are we looking at the same plane? The high off boresight capability and meteor are top of class.

Who cares if it’s ugly. Your priorities are mind boggling. You doubling down on that argument is comical.

This is the internet. You get entertained for free.