Stan and I funded the first phase of the work ourselves. It was secret.
The problem is that replacement of Quantum Mechanics by Quantum Field Theory is still very demanding.
Usually, if you have a new idea, you very rarely break through to anything like recognizable development or implementation of that idea the first time around - it takes two or three goes for the research community to return to the topic.
It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing.