One of the things our military has always liked is super tech for the sake of super tech. The sweet, bipartisan dance of Congressmen, Senators, and big weapons contracts to home districts has been going on for a long time, and woe unto anyone who gets in the way.

Rumsfeld made a lot of enemies in the military by squelching things like the Crusader.

I'll give the Osprey its chance--I haven't been following it for a few years now, so maybe my impression is outdated--but like some other weapons systems, especially those left over from the Cold War, they sometimes seem like a gadget searching for a mission.