Not wasted
While a failure to achieve Mars orbit would be disapointing for all, the mission has not been a waste. Apart from invaulable opertaion experience there have been a number of results, some of which have already been published. These have been on interplanetary plasmas and dust, solar physics, and hydrogen lyman emission. Nozomi is one of the few spacecraft to study the IPM out of the plane of the ecliptic.
Cheers
Jon