[phire]

That was only an issue because they were fired pretty much straight up; They only went 500km down range.

You can also reduce peek deceleration forces by using aerodynamic lift to stretch out the reentry over a longer period.

[pfdietz]

No, it's an issue for most arcing trajectories. Lift doesn't help much if you're coming in at a steep angle. Reentry from orbit only works well because the entry is almost flat; there even a little lift helps a lot.