I would happily delay a human moon landing by a decade, if we spent the time and money doing robotic exploration, find the water ice, and develop robotic tech to turn it into fuel. If we could do that, and loft fuel barges from the moon into lunar orbit or even into Earth orbit from the moon, solar exploration and subsequent human exploration would be so much easier and cheaper.
Agreed! And none of such would be wasted. The technology can still be used when humans come along (or even more robotic probes). Robert Zubrin's original plan stated in his book, "The Case for Mars", was to send automated systems ahead along with an H2 supply to manufacture liquid methane and LOX to be used when the humans showed up later.