You nailed it Solamente. I'd be willing to bet that NASA sweated every minute after seeing that insulation hit the wing, and I'll bet that the crew suspected that they might have a problem on re-entry. They were not prepared to effect a space repair when they had the chance. They just had to get going and hope for the best.
I've heard much about contingency planning today, and I'd look for major changes in contingency planning in the future. Such changes should account for planning a repair BEFORE you have to come back. As someone else noted, the only contingency planning NASA seemed to make was in their after-tragedy statements and actions to obtain after the fact information. Contingency planning by definition should have as a goal the successful return of the people on the shuttle. As I understood it today, contingency planning mainly consisted of the lockdown of flight data immediately following the disaster.
You are also correct and the Challenger sweating took place after the SLC Thiocol engineers said, launching below freezing was suicide...