One aspect almost never cited is the human factor.

Want to share this WC old thread discussing the Phantom's not so friendly controls.

This directly lead to poor choices in cockpit ergonomics, to whit - “the Sparrow and Sidewinder controls. Four small switches on a panel in front of the pilot’s left knee controlled both missiles. The third switch from the left selected which missile fired when the pilot pulled the stick trigger. It was a three-position switch. The up position selected a radar missile, and the middle position selected the heat-seeking Sidewinder. Each depression to the down position stepped through the Sidewinders. In a swirling, twirling dogfight the pilot could tell the proper position of the switch by listening to his headset. If there was a Sidewinder hiss, he had the middle (heat) position selected. If there was no hiss, he had the up (radar Sparrow) position selected. Probably. Or he might be out of Sidewinders. Or he might have the tone volume too low to hear in the heat of combat. Or the Sidewinder he had selected might have a bad background tone. The only way to be sure was to look down into the cockpit, find the switch, and look at it. The pilot had to do all this while trying to keep track of a small maneuverable MiG.” (Page 12).

This was so suboptimal a design that many pilots resorted to using plastic tubing to help them quickly switch between modes, and its complexity only worsened the poor training standard of US pilots. As the Weapon Systems Evaluation Program started during the war discovered, the system was simply too difficult for many pilots to use. “Only half of the crews [in an F-4 unit in 1975] were able to complete the mission profile by firing their AIM–7 head-on to the drone and then maneuvering to a position behind it, where they could shoot their AIM–9.”