I see all that obsession with a vertical landing, from various companies (Space X, Blue Origin, and Armadillo). Is that the holy grail? Just seems so much easier to stuff the damn things with parachutes, and then retrieve the things from the ocean. Refuel/reuse. I admit I have not looked into the whole flight envelopes proposed, so maybe I am just not seeing things correctly...
I’m not sure why the parachutes and ocean landings are not desirable. I suppose having a rocket engine full of seawater isn’t the best thing. Also parachutes and their deployment systems have weight. And I guess there may be more transportation costs too with recovering stuff from the sea and bringing it back to the launch area.
There is a practical limit to how much you can bring back with parachutes. Most boosters would not survive an off-axis landing. Powered landings are controlled, a parachute landing is not. Keep in mind that this thing weighs 5-10% of what it did going up -- it will lose foward velocity pretty quick and won't fall all that fast.
When you drag expensive aerospace hardware out of the sea you aren't reusing it, you are salvaging it.