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The escape rockets were just a hack for safety. The Soviets, by contrast, had really good styling on their stuff, but lost a lot of guys. The U.S. safety rockets hurt performance more than a better-integrated design would have. Even the Shuttle has to throttle back to avoid damage from the relatively thicker air at medium altitudes, and that costs fuel, too. Rocket science is not without compromises.
When seeking performance, it is important not to copy technical features too far out of context. Among the frescoes on the Parthenon, you will find fake peg-heads, as if the marble had been pegged together like the preceding wooden temples had been. To the Greeks, nothing else looked right, even if they knew it didn't matter.
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