> It’s a shame they decided to improve upon the existing hardware and took much longer than initially expected, but that’s what life with rockets used to be before SpaceX showed rapid iteration is a better path.

Uhm, I think you're simultaneously doing a discredit to past rocket development and giving an easy pass to the mess that is SLS with this statement.

It's just shoddy project management and prioritizing collaboration with as many big donar aerospace companies as possible as opposed to what works. There is playing it safe and then there is just being complacent. The SLS is complacency personified.