We created it out of nothing, and at the time used best stuff available on it. We didn't just make a tank, we built the ecosystem to build a tank as well.
Big delays are catastrophic.
Agreed, but Altay was expensive before all the delays as well. Otokar's bid for 250 tanks was what, 14 million apiece? Otokar also took all the stuff I mentioned above into consideration when bidding. BMC undercut them heavily, and now their costs are similar, with a 10 year delay to boot. And how do we even measure the cost of tanks and tankers we lost, and the tactical delays those losses created in theater over the years?