Honestly, I have always wondered how a small country with a small population can create a competitive weapon capable of almost all kinds. And even more - airplanes. Swedes - amazing designers and engineers, just amazing.
In the late 30s, Italy was the only country that would sell anything that even resembled modern aircraft to Sweden, and that was still junk, so Sweden, trying to stay out of alliances had to start designing its own aircraft. Since Sweden is small, doing multi-role makes sense.
As for losing the MMRCA, one of the key reasons was that SAAB showed the Gripen-C/D
and offered the Gripen NG, which is still some years away.
No AESA radar in the C/D version and no Naval version.
Then Rafale do have longer range and more weapon points.
Having a lot of weapon points is only good if you have anything to put there.
As far as I can tell from a brief google, the French Air Force has 180 Rafales delivered or on order
and purchased 1100 MICAs and 200 Meteor, which gives each aircraft 6 MICAs and 1 Meteor.
Wonder what gives more bang for the buck?
A cheaper aircraft which can do several Air to Air sorties loaded with missiles,
or an expensive aircraft which will shoot of the complete inventory in a single mission.
As for the Brazil decision, the Brazil Air Force allegedly recommended Gripen NG,
but former President Lulu wanted to get in bed with France for political reasons.
With the new President that was off, and apparently the new president Dilma Rousseff
wanted closer ties with the US, so the F/A-18 seemed to get a slight upper hand.
Brazil's Super Tucano won the U.S. Light Air Support (LAS) contract for 100 planes, which
was heavily contested by a congress lobby which wanted to contract to be awarded to
Beechcraft. Once they decided that cause was lost, congress cut down the order to 15.
Was probably noted in Brazil.
The U.S. is notoriously bad on ToT, and this was a major part of any deal.
The Edward Snowdon factor definitely had a major effect on the decision.
- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
But everyone seems to ignore the real reason:
We are talking about latinos. They are all machos.
They want the best-looking fighter aircraft in the world, and now they are getting it.