Depends what you mean by "higher quality" really. Better armour? A better gun to start off with? Diesel, rather than petrol, powerplant, so it doesn't go up so easily?Question: With the Army getting more money, could we see a similar production run, but of a higher quality, of a tank different from the Sherman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M6_Heavy_Tank
One reason the M6 was canceled, was increased airplane production. With no money being spend on nukes you can easily get both heavy tanks and more planes.
True, but if you look at the entry for the Pershing, it says that the main reason this wasn't brought into service until the end of the war was not because of a lack of funding as such, but because it took the US Army until after the Normandy landings to find out that the tank destroyer doctrine - i.e., Tanks are for infantry support, Tank Destroyers take on Tanks - did not work in practice. So, what you need is a change in doctrine, not an increase in funding.
Or of course, someone from the future to persuade them it's not going to work.