> Folks don’t appreciate how much energy it actually takes to “fall” into the Earth or even the Sun.
It's not that bad from the Lagrange points thanks to multi-body gravitational dynamics. The Lagrange points form part of the so-called 'interplanetary transit network' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Netwo...) that supports extremely low-energy transfers in the solar system, provided you're willing to wait a very long time.
That being said, there's no reason to send a deep-space probe back to Earth for reentry when it's even easier to send it into a deep-space graveyard orbit of some description with no risk of any potential debris-related problems.
Most of the attractiveness of the concept of "rods from god" relies on this misconception (if you haven't heard the term, it's a theoretical space weapon consisting of placing large tungsten rods in orbit, then dropping them on whatever needs to be destroyed in a purely kinetic strike with the energy of a massive bomb or tiny nuke).
The concept isn't entirely infeasible (you could deorbit the rods actively), but the advantages over just hitting the target with an ICBM quickly dwindle once you realize you can't just "drop" them.
Plus the amount of energy needed to place them there in the first place is also probably way more cost-prohibitive with much less stealth than said ICBM.
I also imagine you could probably knock these things off-course for much cheaper than it cost to put them there or to keep them there.
Both Kerbal Space Program and Outer wilds can sometimes do a good job of driving this point home (especially in OW if you're outside of the ship). It even humbled Thor from PirateSoftware during his stream, which I found hilarious. :D
It’s not really intuitive when most personal experience is how hard it is to keep things from not falling.