The succes rate of SpaceX you are now harping on about is ONLY the recovery of the first stage of the launch vehicle. Something not ever done by NASA (or anyone else) and only sort of attempted in some experimental vehicles (not very successfully I might add).
If we look at primary mission succes they've lost 2 vehicles (one during flight due to a strut failing in the second stage LOX tank, one on the launchpad during a static fire test due to unforeseen cryogenic effects causing defects in the COPV tank). They further lost a secondary payload (but successfully delivered the cargo Dragon capsule to the ISS) due to an engine anomaly, which they could have recovered if the primary customer (NASA) had allowed an extra engine ignition.
67 out of 69 launches successful (not counting the 2 Falcon Heavy launches that use pretty much the same vehicle). A 97.1 % success rate for a new rocket program is nothing to sneeze at. During the 60s and 70s NASA didn't even reach 90% overal success rate. Counting all NASA vehicles it wasn't until the 90s that they reached about 95%.
Recovery of the first stage has never been a priority for SpaceX. They've freely admitted (before launching) on the first recovery attempts that they didn't think they were going to make it for various reasons. Many design changes were made to get to where they are now and every prang was giving them valuable information. Your comment "If we let them just say "Oh, we never intended to land that time"." Is just stupid. I already told you in my first post that they have always announced intent to recover the booster BEFORE launching. No takesies backsies there.
Please stop being intentionally obstinate. There's plenty to criticize Musk (and SpaceX) for, but this isn't the problem you're looking for.