From Oberg's comments: "The fuel leaked, they suggested, because to save money NASA tried to redesign an off-the-shelf Pentagon spacecraft that had been built for launchings into a 24-hour "geostationary" orbit. That mission took barely six hours, not the almost yearlong cruise needed to get to Mars. This original Pentagon mission was "fundamentally different from the interplanetary Mars Observer mission," the report noted in understatement."

It was a money issue despite the overall price tag Larry.

Secondly Apollo demonstrated the fallacy of the incremental approach on 2 levels.

1st in comparison to the decades since it produced phenominal technological advancement by focusing on a challenging yet clear goal in a set period of time. Since then we have wondered aimlessly developing technology which may or may not be of future use.

Secondly Landing a Man on the Moon was clearly an incremental step to colonizing the Moon or sending humans farther out. Apollo accomplished neither in part because there was no focus on the next step and making sure reaching the Moon was a step in that direction. I have heard others claim that a focus on beating the Russians lead to a mission architecture that would get us there first, but be of little value beyond that. I personally disagree given that the Saturn Architecture could have gotten us to Mars in a Mars Direct style approach, but it did not fit well with Mars plans envisioned then. The point is that they were not looking much beyond the immediate goal and failed miserably at being a stepping stone.

There is nothing wrong with going to the Moon or LEO to test equipment for going to Mars. There is a problem with having Mars as a goal, but not clearly stating it and getting bogged down focused on intermediate steps.

Your whole point is also questionable given that a lot of mission critical technology which you seem concerned about will be tested in a Mars direct approach before humans are even launched.

Regards,
Mark