"lack of direction" and "advanced technology development"
Direct quotes from the paragraphs you highlighted.
NASA's lack of direction regarding launch costs stems from the politics of being a govt agency. What's the incentive to reduce costs? Bitch and moan for more money and/or just deliver less. NASA delivers less and less each decade such that we've come to accept it as normal. Contrast this abyssmal performance to the vigor and innovation in the 60s when that NASA went from a Redstone to a Saturn V with LEM and a cancelled NERVA nuclear rocket (OK it didn't fly, but it was built) in less than one decade.
The NASA of the following decades loves playing with technology and delivers X-33 hangar queens, full of new technology that can't fly.