Apollo had an ablative heat sheild, not the tiles like the shuttle.
The tiles were to be reusable quickly and it can be argued have worked quite well for 100+ missions.
Asbestos is very tough to use in the USA now with current regulations.
Furthermore the Buran only flew once so it is not really a good comparison as far as reusability is concerned. It would be intersting how many flights it would have flown before it blew up.
Cheers
Wino