Yup. Cheap. Very cheap. And easier to produce than the He 112. (Less complex surfaces). And it was kept to stay so. I read an interwiew with Willy Messerschmitt who stated, that trim on ALL axis could have been fit from D or E-1 on, but it was cancelled due to costs...
Not to forget that Galland had a F-2 with (!) the MG FFMs in the wings, and another one with MG 131 over the motor without the big bubbles/Beulen...
But as the russians prooved over the first year of Barbarossa: Quantity can, at least, stop quality until the day when quality meets quantity, and so a war is won.
Much could have done, but in an ongoing blitzkrieg, expected to end soon, circumstances are always a bit different
Imagine selection of FW-187 instead of Me 110 in long-range fighter role...
Imagine He 280 serial production in late 1943...
Imagine Me163 with sufficiant fuel supply and working Jagdfaust over the Ploesti oilfields...
And so on.
Speculating over costs is always fascinating. Wasn't the Mustang favoured over the P-38 (to a certain degree) because of lower costs &produciton time per airframe? And guess what: It worked! The Mustang won the war
Yours, Marc-David