String theory and things similar to it evolved to be as intellectually interesting as possible. Normally you have a mixture of humdrum "experiment theory" and exciting abstractions, but without the humdrum experiments to motivate all the humdrum calculations only the most attractive parts get studied. As a result, string theory is 99% mind-blowing, while the rest of the items on the list are 1% mind-blowing and 99% "numerical simulation of heat transfer in a honeycomb lattice." Nobody would ever write a boring string theory paper because there is no possible motivation for doing so. This is not to say that string theorists are somehow neglecting a duty, just that there is almost certainly a vast mine of untapped results that are not presently being worked on because there is little motivation for them.

One thousands years from now when humanity is building star-bridges out of beyond-standard-model particles, I guarantee that there will be a Journal of Taychon Engineering whose articles never make it on PBS.