Unless engine gets a resoanble upgarde what benefit will hardpoints make beyond a separate pod point..none ..also in era of double and triple racks this becomes even more clearer.
I think more important part is whether thunder gets the pod point, IRST, HMD,AESA & RD93MA
Additional hard point means additional drag, and additional RCS.
Additional drag means more power, and less fuel economy,
which then translates to decrease in operational radius.
Now the things with RCS is that it is not magic, and blobs don't just turn up on radar screens.
What the radar receives is a signal which consists of many many signals,
those who are mathematically inclined will remember fourier transforms
anyway, from those signals , one has to only separate signal of importance, and then match that with known signatures to identify which aircraft is it.
Writing above is easy, doing it, means a lot of DSP.
point being, once you load up the aircraft, you can actually play with the radar signatures and effectively fool radars if done intelligently.
