The first problem, I'd simply go with 'future engineering works very well with making starfighters that look like actual aircraft'. It's an established fact of the setting ever since the VF-1 back in UF2, or the 1990s in-universe.

As for the second problem, who says the EA are idiots here? Rather, look at it from the angle that Canada knew what was coming, what the EA had become. They knew that sooner or later, something would happen that gave Clark and co the excuse to dispose of the little problems like member nations and democracy. The Arrow was likely one of many plans the less... enthusiastic members of the EA had in the works long before the Crackdown, and one of the ones that managed to be hidden by the people that were planning for everything going wrong.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter