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Here's a side-by-side comparison of their three barge landing attempts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA7RzJckvQ4

I don't think big, over-engineered solutions really look necessary with the amount of progress they're making. Plus, there aren't any cushioned walls on Mars, which is SpaceX's eventual goal - use this sort of tech to touch down there.

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Also, if you deployed mitigation methods prematurely, then it stops the drive for improvement and tuning of the core landing functionality.

Quick deploy cushions or other "Oops" enhancements might feature into the final version of the barge, but for now I think they're still trying to maximize the landing success rate. Better not to split engineering resources when the most important problem can still benefit from optimization.

They are landing on Mars. That's the ultimate point. Mars does not have airbags.

I get the Mars part but they could have the walls to be fail safe at least on Earth. It's not like they will improve the design only if the rocket falls over and explodes. They would still have to land it up straight, while having some sort of "no wall touched" target (or award). Not to mention the money they save if not every fail is also a complete loss of the rocket. p.s. Money left is also good for future Mars missions.

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