re: Launch escape vs Pad escape
Similarly, if you had a solid rocket pack for re-entry you could design it as a cluster of tubes & fire all the tubes at once for pad escape, and one at a time for a gentler re-entry burn.
The trick is to find ways of using one thing in two different ways - you save mass. However, you do add complexity, which adds some element of risk so you have to be sure you're removing more risk than you're adding...