I think the issue is a bit more complex than just cost.  What needs to be covered is competency.

On the USMC side, what IS IT that the Marines want, SPECIFICALLY?  Write it all down and out in painstaking detail in the solicitation contract requirements.  Don’t be vague such as “We want a 4X4 wheeled cargo vehicle that goes on roads and cross-country.”   Well, does it need armor, passengers, armament, spare tire, hybrid drive, night vision, bulletproof glass, robotics, communications, steel or aluminum or composite hull?  What will be the desired ground clearance?  Do you want it to swim?  How many doors?  Do you want a hard or soft canvas roof?  No answer…then why not an ATV or a dune buggy then?  Why not a pickup?  Why not a harvester or a front end bucket loader?  Those are 4X4s!  Industry will have a field day coming up with all sorts of solutions, gizmos, gadgets, and high-tech.  That drives up costs!  If the USMC doesn’t know what it really wants, then industry will start deciding what the Marines want, spending money to do so and selling things the Marines don’t want nor need.  Also, the USMC needs to start buying vehicles that actually do indeed work.  Why, there’s the cancelled Crusader SPH, M8 AGS light tank, Commanche stealth helicopter, Future Combat System NLOS-Cannon, S-92M helicopter, and other vehicles that a fortune was spent on to get to finally work and cancelled just when all the kinks were worked out.  Why not buy those instead of starting anew each and every time?  Management and oversight are the focus here.

On the industry side there needs to be competency on what engineers and scientists could do.  Without specific requirements from the Pentagon, industry may invite all sorts of prototypes and wild ideas into the design.  This may lead to “too many chiefs and not enough workers” to carry out the work with skill and expertise.  A lot of the cancelled military programs were caused by cost overruns on items that just did not work and required more money to fix.  The vehicle designs and ideas were not bad per se, they just didn’t work the first time, be it software or hardware or both.  IF industry could produce vehicles that DO WORK the first time they roll off the line after testing, then why, costs will be down obviously.  Instead, the DoD has been hampered by prototype vehicles that cost a fortune to get to work and to fix, only to get cancelled when things finally do work.  The U.S. has been building defense vehicles for generations and decades---we should know how.  It should be no small wonder or joke when the U.S. cannot get these vehicles to work correctly.  I mean they’re not spaceships.  Why, if we cannot, there will be no vehicle or plane traffic on the roads or skies!

So sometimes awarding contracts to the lowest bidder may not be such a good idea.  Award contracts to those companies and sub-companies with the know-how to get things built correctly the first time under cost.