NASA was doing this for the first time. They needed resources to deal with unpredictable failures and mistakes. Some NASA capsules missed their target by a hundred miles or more. One sank. Either of those problems would have been far worse if they had been Lean.
"Elon Musk @elonmusk
Thrusters will also fire during reentry to adjust touchdown point. Next version will land w helicopter precision #Dragon"
You know whats leaner then battleships and speedboats? No need for speedboats... vertical landing is next and will reduce time and cost of reusing the capsule by an order of magnitude.
The $1.6b contract was dependent of safe landing and they weren't ready to pull out all of the stops with their "next gen" technology.
Now that they have their contract they can continue hitting their milestones at a blistering pace, get huge press coverage and increase their pace towards the goal of multi-planetary solar system domination...
