It might have been selected just for reliability sake. That is how especially militaries usually want them. better to have a tested lesser product of the last gen, than to have the current gen wild card tech that may or may not have a intolerable amount of bugs and problems that could in a combat situation get the ship wrecked and the crew killed.

as always in government, you get the minimum that satisfies the contract. This is true. That is what you get when you combine governments nearly unlimited budgets with private profit seeking and very little to no oversight. It’s either audit the private contractor in everything all the time or have some state company or institution do the product or service for you.