I agree.
We have got to replace the shuttle...Period.
It is outdated, unsafe, and can't do 80-90% of the things we would want it to do if the Moon and Mars are our true goals.
Maybe after we've gotten back to the Moon, we can start looking more seriously at the advanced propulsion areas. There are promising ideas out there that certainly deserve to be explored in future budgets.
But for right now we got to focus on safe, reliable, manned access to space because right now, as I type this, we don't have it.