Absolutely, a high loss rate might not be a bad thing at all in the military context if they ultimately got a vast quantity of intel data (they did) and delivered some bombs on the right foreheads (they did) at a reasonable dollar cost.

I think the preds got the job done a lot cheaper and faster than trying to re-start and/or ramp production of suitable manned assets (U2? P-8? C-12?) and saturate the skies with them. You'd also need pointy-nose to drop the bombs unless you used the P-8.

Avoiding unneeded exposure of personnel to hazard is a huge plus as well.

So I think they got their bang-for-buck with preds, but I'm sure they would have preferred a lower loss rate. There were several actors at play...

Some of that was growing pains, new application of technology

General Atomics is NOT an aviation company, and they certainly had some learning curves...among other things they were late to actually employ rated professional pilots into their development and test programs so they probably didn't understand a lot of procedural processes that we take for granted.

Preds were needed quickly (and cheaply) so GA was able to rush them into service without doing the kind of in-depth validation and testing required for certification of manned assets. They also intentionally did not build in much redundancy...cheaper to buy a new airplane if a system fails, rather then install redundant systems on the whole fleet.

So I'll given them a "mission accomplished" within the context of what they needed to do. But that context was fast and cheap, and IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER translates to automated pax aircraft. It also should not translate to unmanned aircraft which share the skies with manned aircraft outside of war zones.