[sheepshear]

All of the Falcon 1 payloads were expendable (which includes low-priority). It was a test vehicle conducting test flights in all but name. Had they continued developing it instead of pivoting to Falcon 9, it would have been its own test vehicle.

Suppose that the eventual production vehicle has a fairly different design, a different name, and it succeeds on its first flight. Would it then have used the same methodology that resulted in Falcon 9?

I'm only asking rhetorically. The Ship of Theseus is an interesting philosophical question, but the way you define "methodology" shouldn't depend on your answer.