You're only heating your structure that much when you're landing an entire spacecraft. If you just have a capsule going down its usually easier to have an abla

You're only heating your structure that much when you're landing an entire spacecraft. If you just have a capsule going down its usually easier to have an ablative heat shield. Also, it's a lot easier to foresee the weight of a design than its cost so most space programs use it as a proxy for cost. So generally the space industry would optimize for minimizing weight and not even try to think about how the materials used would affect cost.