Well, the top intake issue is entirely connected with the engine imo. There wasn't an engine powerful enough to ensure the required power from only two of them at the time of design. The question is, are they working on such an engine that can be fitted to future J-36 variants alleviating the need for the third engine? Such an engine, preferably VCE, needs to be at least 20,000 but preferably 22,000 kgf of thrust as the lower end.
On the other hand my understanding was that the Lockheed high end NGAD proposal was supposed to have 4 engines (!). Now whether such a configuration was studied by CAC with say 4 WS-19 engines and why was it rejected would be interesting to know.
But yeah i have to say that top intake has been rubbing me the wrong way too lately.
