Well, in fairness it showed LockMart was definitely playing with some matured technology rather than a true testbed, and the -22 did have the TV engines that the -23 didn't. The Air Force was looking for a fighter, and wanted the best furball performance, so it went with the better dogfighting capability. The -23 was always more of an interceptor; faster and stealthier but not as apt in the turning fight. (Granted, some of these 'better' statistics are very fine differences between them, but still)
Were it a perfect world we'd have adapted both platforms and given any threat axis a hi-hi approach to dealing with air combat, because you want different threat envelopes to cover things - otherwise, if someone comes up with a way to reliably defeat your single-frame air combat unit, you've got nothing else in the tool shed. (See also: the Zero problem)
I wonder how the Widow IIs would have handled ground attack?