This sounds less like metaphysics and more like a math exercise to me, though. Deriving a smaller handful of cleaner axioms that result in quantum mechanics is a valid exercise in mathematical cleanup. And if I'm reading their claims correctly, doing so such that all but one axiom equally applies to classical mechanics, and only the introduction of one specific one yields quantum mechanics, would be legitimately interesting mathematically. It reminds me of Euclid's Fifth axiom, where it turns out that tweaking that one specifically yields multiple different valid geometries.

It probably isn't really progress in the sense the article writer thinks; juggling isomorphic representations is in some sense not "really" progress. But it can still be worth it for the practical improvements and potential didactic improvements. Perhaps if we had better education for QM with a better mathematical model, it would lead to less existential angst in the first place. I've seen Scott Aaronson trying to do some work on that front as well. In fact I'd consider it ironic if QM turns out merely to be slightly difficult and a hundred years of psuedo-philosophical babbling sourced from nothing more than a slanted view of relatively simple principles. I think some people will actually get upset if there is success in taking the mysticism away from QM....