Are we reading the same comment? I don't see any dismissal of previous accomplishments. Why is calling this failure a failure bad? You need failures to learn and hopefully be successful eventually.
A failure would have been scattering the pad all over again, and not getting to stage sep. Or worse.
Optimistic/Pessimistic does not really matter.
By this criteria, I would say failure/partial failure or partial sucess. There is no way this was a success.
Also, everyone can call this what they want. The thing that grinds my gears is not respecting that other people do have a different opinion.
Years before Covid, my neighbor had an "opinion" that vaccines were unnecessary/dangerous, so she wouldn't get vaccinated. Just like you, she said "you have your opinion, and I have mine." In today's woke culture, that makes me the bad guy for not respecting her opinion, mansplaining, etc.
But opinions don't trump facts. At least, they shouldn't
also, as cool as "facts" are it really bothers me when people take their opinion and present it as fact or as truth. you see: the truth is something abstract and usually, not always, but usually there is a matter of interpretation and a gradient of the truth. I'm not speaking of well researched things that have mountains of evidence behind them. I'm speaking about people having really strong opinions without understanding the evidence behind it and without understanding the nuances of what applies when. It's really fashionable to shit all over other people when they don't agree to a T with what you are saying but IMHO it's the wrong thing to do - being curious and actually unpacking what they are trying to say if they can have a civilized discussion and logic actually works with them is the way to go.
Pretty similar to how a lot of NASA's missions have requirements like lasting 90 days on Mars. If that is reached, the mission was a success, even though they obviously don't just stop having objectives after that.
Not only it is not success, it is a massive failure when compared to the magic technology from the 60's.
Space industry is the only industry that is moving backwards, it seems.