Isn't it time that spaceflight historians reconsider whether certain
space-missions from the past were 'failures'?

I'll cite some examples:

Project Mercury "Aurora-7" [May/1962]. So what if Scott Carpenter missed his splashdown site by 240 miles? He provided valuable scientific data about space and human-function in it.
>That 'failure' should be reconsidered a success.

Gemini-8. Yes! The spacecraft went spinning wildy & dangerously for a time, and had to make an emergency splashdown. But Neil & Dave carried out the first successful docking in space [and they proved the theoretical danger of static-electricity during space-dockings was a bugaboo]...If Gemini-8 had been
the last of the Geminis, the Gemini program would have achieved all the necessary goals necessary for the Apollo
missions to follow.
>The Gemini-8 mission 'failure' should be reconsidered a success.

Also, in unmanned deepspace exploration,
the Soviet Mars-4, Mars-5, and Mars-6,
are historically considered 'failures',
but Mars-4 and Mars-5 both successfully orbited Mars and returned photographs
and other data...And the Mars-6 descent
module returned in situ data from
the martian atmosphere [including measurements of high Argon content in the martian atmosphere].

Jacob