Do it the MIR / Skylab way
There doesn't seem to be any well-articulated reason to bring back big payloads. For example, it would be cheaper to launch a brand-new better Hubble than to deorbit via shuttle, upgrade, and re-launch the existing one.
If all you want to do is get stuff out of orbit, there's a cheap and natural way to do that which incidentally makes for great video opportunities.
