Yes, the Shuttle was more complex, expensive and dangerous than Soyuz, and yes, those are forms of technical inferiority. But the Shuttle was capable of solo f

Yes, the Shuttle was more complex, expensive and dangerous than Soyuz, and yes, those are forms of technical inferiority. But the Shuttle was capable of solo flights for couple of weeks without adverse effects of Soyuz - that is, Shuttle was bigger, and that's useful. Shuttle brought the bigger crew - more than twice bigger, so there could be better specialization and division of labor, and even the amount of tasks done per unit of time. Shuttle brought significant payload capability - so the crew could make final preparations before the payload would be launched. Similarly Shuttle can "dock" to Hubble to service it. Or crew could work on orbit in SpaceLab which Shuttle carried to orbit and back. Those are advantages. Shuttle was more gentle in landing - of course, when things went well. Landing on the strip without passing significant acceleration moments before that - that's another advantage. I don't think SU and Russia had technical superiority over US - except admittedly safety of the Shuttle, and except those periods when US hadn't have the capability at all. Safety is a big item, so Russia can claim superiority for this reason, and also for simplicity and cheapness, but better US solutions - e.g. with Crew Dragon - suggest it's normal that flying to space better - for many reasons, some of which are shown above - may be either more expensive or will require significant changes, like e.g. modern America companies are pushing. Now Russia doesn't have much of superiority left, and little capabilities to attain it, or at least it seems so. It's arguably better to have the ability to develop to the needed level, than just to carefully preserve achievements of the past.