Good points, and one thought that occurs to me is that given what a demanding environment re-entry is, it is impressive that Columbia lasted as long as it did with the damage it had, and, that the flight control system was able to cope with it pretty well right up until the wing folded up. I suspect a craft less overdesigned, less redundant, and with less sophisticated flight control systems wouldn't have made it so far. Irrelevant in the Columbia accident, but perhaps there are scenarios where the abiilty to suffer a bit of damage and delay the inevitable would make a difference.

Similar for the Concorde: hitting a piece of debris on a runway would never have taken down a 747. But combine higher take-off speeds (=much more violent failure of tires) and a more fragile airframe -- both necessary tradeoffs to get the better peformance in flight than a 747 -- and you have a less robust system.

Agree with you wholeheartedly about the pilot, and glad to see there are some organizations willing to take risks like that these days.