Yes, but that's not the case for most objects you interact with in everyday life. All, most likely, unless you're in a particular job.

They're comparing to the average falling object not the average de-orbiting object.

not missing anything, but it's just one of those things about how fast orbital speeds are. yes, i know orbital speeds are around 17,000 mph. this is just another example of just how fast that is. a lot of people might be familiar with falling objects speeding up to get to terminal velocity which is kind of a speed limit for normal things. for de-orbiting spacecraft, this is just another milestone of slow speeds to achieve and not a limit of how fast it goes.

sometimes just looking at things from a different perspective makes me smile on the relative nature of "fast"

The boosters never achieve close to orbital velocity though, less than half if my memory is correct.

it's a good thing nobody was confused about the booster vs ship re-entering the atmosphere