The purpose of NASA is to dish out pork to congressional districts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Spencer#Career
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#Commercial_avai...
Also, "bureaucratically neutered" is an odd phrase. It's the government, so of course there is oversight and politics at an agency level. But OTOH, the agency's record at not interfering with discrete science findings is actually very good.
What point are you trying to make? [Disclosure, I have published research while funded by NASA.]
I can't say I understand how that's criticizing from both directions. The research is underfunded, and as you noted more funds generally increases the speed of the research. There are layers of bureaucracy, which naturally slows down the rate of research due to waiting on various aspects of the research to get reviewed and deemed useful to the agency. How is that attacking it from two sides?
And your take on what I mean by "bureaucratically neutered" is fairly accurate, but I stand by it. I am referring to having non technical bureaucrats in the agency calling shots about research they may not understand based on non-related pressures (pork funds drying up due to political shifts, undesirable media exposure for research with uncomfortable results, sudden change in leadership that may not think the research is necessary after all, etc).
All this said, I have indeed never been involved with the agency so you might have a better perspective on the matter than I.
Also, I'd think at JPL you guys would have a bit easier time getting funding/latitude to do the research you do vs a lower profile lab, given JPL's track record.
Edited to reflect my opinion of reality...
If you look at how the individual subsystems and subcontractors for the F-35 program were spread around various states and congressional districts, creating jobs in various places, they intentionally designed it to be unkillable.