I wouldn't discount the capsule. From the sound of it, the plan is for this to be a fairly universal capsule for years to come. If it has the longevity of Soyuz

I wouldn't discount the capsule. From the sound of it, the plan is for this to be a fairly universal capsule for years to come. If it has the longevity of Soyuz, we might be flying Orions (with design upgrades) for 40 years. That's not a bad thing. It seems to me that NASA is backing away from building one giant integrated system. They're working on building a collection of systems that can be composed into different missions. There will be rockets, and service modules, and future space craft. This is probably a better strategy given the political reality that you only have continuity for 4-8 years at best. No matter what the next president & congress plan, we will have a capsule that is useful. It is bought and paid for. Also, the capsule might not be as futuristic looking as a space plan, but it is a workhorse. That's all it needs to be. The fact that you can launch it with basically any rocket that is powerful enough is a feature not a bug. I'd love to see Orions on top of SLS, future SpaceX rockets, etc. If it was something super specific it might not be able to fly on other rockets.