It was very shocking to see that they didn't have one. It's not like this was one of those secret things that NASA has done that prevents others from having success. As recently as during SLS ramp up, I remember articles covering the testing of the deluge system for SLS. They talked about how many gallons per second, and the total amount of water necessary, and all of the other blah blah blah details that a non-rocket scientist like me read and was aware of being something necessary. The fact that SpaceX did not have this was quite laughable. Like nobody ever at SpaceX raised a hand in a meeting to bring up this issue, or it was brought up but then slapped down with a "let's don't be silly" type of response? I think the latter would be worse than the former.
If I recall, they really hoped it would work without it because the idea is to launch off the surface of other planets that won't have a deluge system. Not sure if that additional context makes it seem any less crazy to think it isn't needed though.
