re: Are you sure about the 2000 Soyuz launches?
That's more than one per week for the last 36 years! If they have built that many Soyuz rockets they are probably still in silos with nukes mounted on them. Anyway, the shuttle is probably expensive because it has wings, while the Soyuz does not but can still land in a target area (usually).
We might ask why the shuttle needs wings?