The Shuttle program in general would be a good case study. The reusable vehicle was supposed to drastically reduce the cost of puting things into orbit, but something (or things) went far different than planned. I've seen cost comparisons showing the price per pound to orbit being far less for expendables. Another article I read indicated an evolution of the Saturn 5 would have been much cheaper than the Shuttle for manned launches.Yes you are correct, and either would be a good research subject on complex project management. The goal, for Amethyst, is to explain how the projects went bad and what mitigating actions the project manager could have undertaken.
The Challenger project, unfortunately was plagued by bad politics from the beginning.
-- Rita
It would be a big project to research all this, (incorrect assumptions or changed situations that led to the higher STS costs, etc) and, since we didn't go with a large expendable rocket, we'll never know if what the cost of the "mega expendables" would have been.
Study of a single construction project would be more well-bounded and simpler to tackle in a research project.