Fair points that the Viking emphasis on "Life!" didn't necessarily set us up for future study as well as possible. But also to be fair, it's not like we only took a Mars hiatus -- we more or less took a decade off from solar system from the late 70s to the late 80s, and would have resumed at Mars in 1993 if not for the Mars Observer hardware failure.

I suppose it's hard to blame the Viking people *too* much for going for the quick and easy jackpot, given how little else we knew at the time. Essentailly we asked not, "Is there life on Mars?" but, "Is highly Earth-like life so common on Mars that you can easily find it by scooping up a shovel-full of dirt from any old spot on the surface?"

Had the answer been "yes" that would have been an amazing payoff and changed the course of everything.

Since the answer to that specific question was "no", well, back to square one.