Ethnically speaking, I'm Anglo-Saxon in the literal sense
Largely correct. For the time being, the only confirmed delivery vehicles for Avangard are spare SS-19 missiles though. It seems likely that it will be deployed on other platforms in future however, for example the Sarmat heavy ICBM.
Regarding airbreathers, Tsirkon is likely to remain exclusively ship/submarine launched, *possibly* with a terrestrial version to follow, now that INF is dead. Not because it would be somehow unsuitable for airlaunch, this seems to be more a repetition of the division of work between design bureaux as seen with the navy/army 3M10 Granat & air force Kh-55 in the closing days of the Cold War. The modern air-droppable component would be GZUR, for which (unlike Tsirkon) we actually know what it will look like:
Yup, lots of them!
This document shows the situation as of 2008, so fails to capture the build-up in China since then - but at the time, fully 40% of all hypersonic tunnels considered in it were located in Russia!
Hypersonic windtunnels per se are actually an old hat, most countries building ballistic missiles or manned spacecraft indigenously will have such a capability to study reentry aerothermodynamics. It follows that the first such facilities date back to the early 1950s.
Hard to say, as you note there is a lack of information from the non-US players. Russia is relatively open about announcing tests and select performance specs, but notably secretive on pictures. Conversely, China has few qualms about publishing photos, yet keeps totally mum on testing and technical information (what we know about their test programme comes from US intelligence).
Inferring from what is publicly known, I'd say the US is typically underrated - their intercontinental HGV tests may have been unsuccessful until 2020, but then they were pursuing risky solutions. The HTV vehicles were apparently attempting to steer without aerodynamic controls by displacing the centre of gravity, whereas if published CGIs are any indication, Avangard is more conventional. OTOH, that presents the Russians with serious thermal protection challenges - that they've managed to make it work might indicate they currently hold an edge in this regard. If so, it did take them some 30 years of chipping away at the problem to get there:
It's worth noting that even some of the tests Podvig somewhat disdainfully designates as failures might have returned more useful data than US tests prior to last year's success. HTV-1 & 2 were both lost less than two minutes into the endoatmospheric part of their flight!
China has only recently started testing an intercontinental HGV per US assessments, but of course was the first nation to field a shorter-range vehicle of this kind (DF-17). Also, as impressive as Avangard is, production is glacial - we're probably still in the single digits, two years after initial deployment.
As you say, the slow progress in the US is likely down to lack of necessity at least as much as lack of ability or lack of political will.
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