It seems like a lot of people are making too much out of the fact that the ship survived re-entry. On a test flight, the difference between “the heat shield failed around the flap causing severe structural damage, but it held together enough to make it through re-entry” and “the heat shield failed around the flap ultimately resulting in a RUD” is not particularly significant. The implication for both is that there are major engineering challenges yet to be solved for managing re-entry. Don’t get me wrong, this was a successful (and wildly entertaining) test flight and I think SpaceX will get re-entry sorted out.