It's not all THAT bad, but it's probably because of the space required to fit the lift fan assembly. They'd have to really mess with the geometry to put the seat higher and still have it come out right, with the fuselage depth required for the lift fan, single engine, internal weapons bays, etc. all competing for space.
The Boeing entry into the JSF competition had a higher seat and it looked terrible. No plane that ugly could ever be permitted to win a USAF contract, because half of our deterrent capability is based on how cool we look
Seriously, it's a well known fact in the military that because a well-done military task looks very cool, anything that doesn't look cool must be a colossal foul-up and is to be avoided at all costs. If you look like a clown, you must actually BE a clown. If you look cool, chances are you're doing things right and nobody's going to question what you're really doing.
Guns knows what I'm talking about... When you're looking for someone who's not doing things right, you don't have to spot the actual mistake or error. You just look for the one person who's different or somehow "clownish" in appearance or demeanor. That's usually the one person screwing everything up, and you can solve an awful lot of real problems with 1/10th the effort by simply identifying the clown acts and correcting them.
When you see a dude with his kevlar helmet on backwards, chances are his gas mask doesn't fit either and he tucked his chem suit into his boots. It isn't exactly rocket science, so looking cool is quite often the natural result of doing things right.
The Lockmart JSF entry looked (relatively) cool, the Boeing one didn't. I can't say that this affected the contract award, but the retarded look of the boeing entry sure didn't help.
That said, I think a little better rearward visibility would be nice but it's not really all that bad compared to an F-4 or F-14, and both of those planes were REALLY cool.
