I really wish I could find a book (or series) that started with explaining the (non-)results of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and traced through the major experiments that underpin modern theory. Just picking out the major quintessential experiment (types) -- things like the Bell test.

Much of science is really just subtle modifications or tests of major theories, but I feel like you could write up... say 12 keystone experiments in 100 page summaries and publish it in 2-3 volumes, (eg, QM and relativity volumes).

The problem I have with only presenting "polished" results is that we lose the context of our modeling -- eg, QM seems to have included non-determinism in an effort to preserve locality, but locality couldn't be preserved in the face of other results, so is non-determinism merely an extra assumption included for legacy reasons (eg, technical debt because no one wants to clean up the model/people forgot why we included it)?

You'd never even think to ask that question if you only saw the cleaned up model of QM divorced from its (philosophical) roots.