I am aware that the A-10 does not do "gun runs" much, now, if ever. Its value lies in its simple design, redundancy, armor protection--and pilot.
USAF doctrine has long insisted that survivability requires extreme speed and/or altitude performance and/or stealth and/or something else--anything as long as "it" is not cheap and/or proven. The "future battle" always "requires" some new combination of expensive, bleeding-edge technologies that limits numbers purchased, delay soperational capability far beyond the original plan, and suffers in service from poor reliability, high maintenance load, and poor availability.
Drones trade survivability for expendability. The limitations of their sensors and the time delay in their control paths limit the situational awareness a nd responsiveness that an in situ pilots provides.
A simple aircraft continues to make sense or wars we are most likely to get ourselves into, if recent history is any guide. Most often, aircraft are likely to face little or no aerial opposition and only man-portable ground-based air defenses. The ability to directly observe and discriminate will remain important.
Unfortunately, real-world requirements have relatively little to do with procurement decisions. Institutional biases and enthusiasms, politics, and, above all, industry profits drive these decisions.
