> Starship hasn't had a mission yet that I'm aware of.

Then you will agree that comparing an unproven launcher which seems to be far far away from being able to fulfill a similar role is a very silly endeavour, let alone talk about it as a vast improvement which just so happens to blow up.

I don’t think it’s _that_ silly, there are plenty of cases where comparisons are useful. SpaceX’s development approach is radically different from traditional aerospace, but it’s clearly working for them. A bunch of Falcon 9s blew up too, and now it’s one of the most reliable and frequently used launch platforms in history. Why would you expect Starship to follow a completely different trajectory?