If this article was correct, then what you said is not true. Seems like NASA went with a bad plan from the start to refurbish the old tech and made a costly, inefficient and risky tech-franken-zilla.

They were required, by Congress, to use Shuttle engines and SRBs to build a vehicle capable of deep space transportation.

They should have refused

Congress: Use Shuttle engines and SRBs to build a vehicle capable of deep space transportation.

Nasa: No that's too costly.

Congress: lol ok we'll slash funding + you legally can't refuse.

If the customer demands it they'll sell their integrity, and damn the taxpayers. I have little sympathy for this.

If this sort of continued honesty-free space program is what Congress + NASA are going to give us, we'd be better off without a manned space program.

Yep. For reference regarding the budget stipulations: https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-we-have-the-sls

NASA does the most ambitious thing modern, bureaucratic NASA can do with the funding, considering that each previously approved project is 4x over budget and 5-10 years late, eating into the feasibility of new projects.

Old NASA could do 5-10x as much, with the same amount of inflation-adjusted money and people. The motivation was to fail+learn and achieve a shared goal. SpaceX is the closest analog today, with a long term mission and the drive to make it happen.

NASA could do the same, but it's tied up by Congress and jockeying for any money, with funds allocated by Congress on a per-project basis.