I've always been interested in this particular matter because I'm sure Sukhoi and affiliated groups are more than capable of designing and building a fifth gen fighter with side bays. The current set up an and assumption of side bays seems slightly dubious to me for reasons stated and so the question becomes, what does Sukhoi and the RuAF think is more beneficial to this fighter rather than side bays. Not everyone has to follow the American path. Maybe they've just replaced side bays with another thing offering different attributes and the space required sacrifices the side bays. Whatever the truth is, i'm sure the designers aren't muppets. Rather than assuming they've made compromises, they may have just been clever about how money is spent and what technologies hold priority.
Heh!, HEh!, Heh, the Soviets copied the the B-17 and the B-29 panel and rivet for rivet! and as to your statement, "not everyone has to follow the American path??" NO ONE HAS TO FOLLOW THE AMERICAN PATH!
but they do, the Chinese bought and then license built the Sukhoi SU-27 derivatives, then they reproduced the SU-33 and called it the J-15..... in the design world smart people don't feel compelled to re-invent the wheel.
We have call PAK-FA the F-22sky for the last two decades or longer, the F-22 has side bays for short range AAM, the SU-57 has been designed to be super maneuverable and go head to head with the F-22, it will have side bays for those AAM, as does the J-20...
whats amazing here is that people with an anti-American bias let that cloud their thinking and their perception of the real world????? fun right, sure it is,,,, but "everybody" wants to eat at McDonalds.
The Japanese, Russians, and Chinese like American toys, sure they invent their own, but most of my childhood toys were Japanese reproductions, (think stamped sheet metal aircraft), of American aircraft! LOL
I had a really neat "Lockheed Electra" with spinning propellors, and a powered undercarriage with steerable nose wheel... koolest dang thing you ever saw!
the challenge for each of us to put aside our bias, and look at the world around us,, I'm starting to see things a lot more clearly, because like you, being on SDF has helped me understand how the rest of the world "thinks and feels", and that more than anything is why I am here!