The entire aerospace industry has been bureaucratic and hidebound for decades. The story of Lockheed's Skunk Works almost belies the point--they were certainly innovative, but even in the 1960's, the only way they could accomplish it was to get all the best engineers and hide from the bureaucrats long enough to just build shit. Up until the first stealth fighter or so (the F-117) it worked, but it doesn't seem to anymore, considering all the problems, delays, crashes, and other mishaps the F-22 has had.
(Though, to be fair, the F-22 is a much more difficult undertaking. The F-117 had exactly one thing different from any other airplane from the 70's: it was shaped funny. It also had fly-by-wire because it was aerodynamically poor, but the engineering was far more conservative. The F-22 has lots of innovations at once--stealth, supercruise, improved avionics, the whole works--which entails far much more risk. Also, the 117 was a black project, which means there were a couple smart people in the Pentagon approving it and working as their clients, as opposed to the 22 where there were hundreds of Congressmen and thousands of federal bureaucrats to worry about as clients.)