It sounds like they knew this older version was more likely to fail, so they just launched it to clear out the backlog. Sure they got data, but they might just

It sounds like they knew this older version was more likely to fail, so they just launched it to clear out the backlog. Sure they got data, but they might just confirm suspected problems. See launch pad damage for an example of a known weakness. All that tumbling? The flight was lost so why wait? I think they really really wanted stage separation to happen and "kept trying".