[Accipitriform]

To be fair, each service has its own variant. That's increased cost, but each service should have aircraft that'll work well for the individual service's requirements.

The F-15, F-16, and F-18 are all multi-role aircraft, and are fairly unarguably the world's best in their categories. There's no reason to think the F-35 won't be in the same class.

As to the A-10, I believe the F-35's primary ground support approach will be from pretty high altitude, using smart weapons. That kind of approach will even work against first-tier opponents.

If you need "low and slow" close air support while shooting up the enemy with cannon, the Apache seems a better fit. The AC-130 is somewhere in between...note recent AC-130 variants have been getting longer and longer range weapons to decrease vulnerability to MANPADS.