Actually, I live in Texas through necessity, rather than choice (Ever tried to hunt in Texas? $$$$$) I am a New Mexico boy.
Take a look at the size of the X-43. It held enough fuel for 20 seconds or so at Mach 10. Where you gonna put a subsonic engine and enough fuel to bring it back? make it bigger? now we got to add more fuel to make that mass go faster, which means even bigger... Now we have the proverbial self-eating watermelon.
IOW, a recovery system would compromise the primary mission. In these programs, hardware is cheap.
I can't forget the advances credited to NASA--they ARE the Space Program, and were developed absolutely to further it. The reason we quit advancing was because too manypeople couldn't see past their own noses and began yelling about all the "Waste", and Congress cut the budget off, very nearly completely. People lost interest after the 2nd flight to the moon--it was too "Routine"
Oh, well--we struggle on. Have fun
edited to add:
For a laugh, check out the current Klyde Morris:
http://www.klydemorris.com/strips.cfm