A big cheer goes up from those who opposed Reagan’s “Starwars” years ago - see, we knew we were right -we’re glad we can claim that now, even though it puts the country at risk to let us be able to say it.....
As I understand it, this was a test of a new (and ultimately much more capable) variant of the SM3. I believe only the first stage (booster) is shared with the previous version. With that much new development some issues are expected. Yes it would’ve been more confidence building to hit, but you learn from failure too. I wonder just how much detail on the cause will be made public.