The way I understand is that they're confused about the difference between test flights and operational missions.

The problem is that their point is nonsense.

This isn't a long-standing problem being persistently ignored, this is a test flight designed specifically to discover such problems. They were so keen to test how the system handled problems like this that they deliberately damaged the heat shield before the flight (somewhere other than where this particular problem occurred).

The implication that this partial failure of the heat shield is damning evidence of negligence is either ignorant or deliberately deceptive