Quite right, it's a difficult problem, and solving it reduces your payload capacity and adds extra difficulty. In many ways the ITS and Space Shuttle Orbiter were/are quite similar. They look fairly similar (partly because of the black bottom), they need to solve the same problem (landing from orbit), and they are even quite similar in dimensions (38m length for the Space Shuttle, 50m height for the ITS).
But I just think it's silly to be not going for full re-usability in 2017. Any new launch systems should be an improvement on what we already have (and not just in payload capacity).
If SpaceX get the ITS right, then they will be pushing us into that sci-fi future. If they can launch 100 people to an orbital Space Station, land the thing, then take another 100 people to a space station next week... that's insane. That's Star Trek stuff right there. There are things you can criticise the ITS for, including it's lack of a launch escape system, but to not pursue that goal seems strange.
Having said that, maybe Blue Origin are working on it. They have extremely intelligent guys (many of whom they pinched from SpaceX) and they've been working for complete re-usability right from the off. It could just be they aren't ready to show us yet.
I'm not even sure if they are going to be doing that, technically. It seems like the 400,000 miles wasn't a miss spoken word, right now they seem to planning to skim the moon at 400,000km, and watch it as it becomes smaller and smaller, until finally reaching a apogee 650,000km from Earth and being pulled back.
I think if I was paying for it, I'd rather do the Apollo 13 route, although I guess there is something to watching the moon slip away (and breaking all previous crewed records) that would be quite awesome