Even today, NASA is still the gold standard because of its R&D prowess. Mainly because of entities like JPL (which is unquestionably unmatched worldwide) that has managed to remain in the public sector, free of the meddling of capital interests, and remain managed/administered by one of the top academic scientific research institutes in the world.
I think people often forget that these private space agencies all borrow heavily from and heavily collaborate with NASA R&D (not just SpaceX) and are not shitting out these technologies and vehicles on their own. Not saying this is a good thing, private space agencies should all fuck off, shrivel up and die.
The only good way to research, develop, manufacture, assemble, and utilize space vehicles is when the project is managed by public sector engineers. Period. Anyone who argues against that is a complete fucking moron with no understanding that history has already well vindicated this position.