For whatever reason the Escort flights seemed to have been pretty much unchallenged, I have checked the mission again and a flight of SU-27's and MiG29S should have arrived at our target way before the MiG23's that you engaged, timings and steer point info is correct so I'm not sure why they didn't become a factor. Other flights seemed to be following different routes aswell..
It has happened to me when i was testing a mission that had all the bandits taking off the same airport. The sweep flight kept arriving very late even thought it was supposed to be the 1st to arrive in the battle zone. Problem was solved when i moved their to another airfield.