I thought I would never be visiting that one. Never say never, I guess.
Take I-1 with its afterburning centrifugal-flow turbojet (I am doing this for the sake of my mental notes idea, so it doesn't follow any of our history development, so to speak), give it a solid nose and other aerodynamic refinement, and a radar for either Derby (via Grifo maybe) or R-77 (via Kopyo) BVRAAM, as well as the companion dogfight WVRAAMs......
I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to aerodynamics though...... I wonder what I can do to maximize the maneuverability, perferably without having to resort to FBW......