Eh that's a spaceplane and solid rocket booster shells which I see as categorically different, and an absurd failure on a cost per kg basis.

It was a spaceplane and also a rocket. It literally had fixed rocket engines and was carried up by separating rocket stages. And yeah, it was expensive to operate, but it was built in the '80s and it truly was the first reusable rocket regularly flown, rather than being merely an experimental craft.