The point is that you can't just draw a line around obvious failure modes and say they're not part of the strategy. If you compare the median global response to "we beat the virus with a single lockdown!", that sounds like an obvious winner, but it's a much more equivocal story if you compare it to "we'll be doing snap lockdowns 1-2 times a year for the foreseeable future, and even then we may need to give up on elimination if one of the lockdowns doesn't work".

(As someone mentioned upthread, this shouldn't be seen as a slight against the people or leadership of New Zealand, who generally seem to understand that lockdowns weren't meant to be a one-and-done measure.)