Raising once again the issue of whether the game is simulating future technology or whether it's simulating (now-obsolete) science fiction
Well, they did mention that the ablative re-entry was faster than a grav re-entry. You could combine them.
Use the ablative re-entry down to, say, 1000 feet, jettison the capsule and click on the grav belt to slow you down and land you (as well as later mobility).
Just adds options, use dependent on situational circumstances.
The other part not mentioned is there's, potentially, no real need for an ablative shell and coming in like a meteor.
We have ships with big drives. They can just STOP in orbit and folks can hop out like those guys dropping from those very high balloons.
We have fiery re-entry because the objects are coming in at orbital speeds. Well, "don't do that".
Obviously it depends on how high they start out at, but ships can come in pretty "low" to deploy.
I don't know if you're dumped in vacuum and just start falling how much speed you'll gain before you hit the atmosphere, and if that's fast enough to warrant all the shielding, or you can just slowly decelerate to terminal velocity. Maybe you won't get burnt to a cinder.
If you scatter your troops in drop capsules from orbit like seeds in the wind, its going to make the drops during D-day look like precision paratroop demonstrations, guys scattered half way across the continent. Look how much trouble they had with the F-15 crew in Iran because they ejected at different times.
