Their funding was far from unlimited, I'm afraid. The programme wasn't a single agency like NASA, but rather multiple design bureaus that made competing offers to the government. Price was a very big factor, not least because of the large amounts of money spent on the military. A better way of putting it would be that they spent their money a lot more sensibly, focusing more on the fulfilment of the mission than on various optional objectives. Unfortunately, ESA most likely aren't going to do independent manned launches any time soon, nor are they likely to make any super-heavy unmanned launches. JAEA faces much the same problem, as well as relative obscurity.