I don't think you're wrong, I've seen a few interesting papers that nibble around the edges, usually examining how bugs get introduced and when they are fixed. I mentioned the field as an example of where someone coming from industry would not have to catch up to someone whose knowledge of Turing machines was still very fresh.
You're right, no trials on methodology that resemble something like clinical trials. And of course the reason for that is it would be incredibly expensive to even run a reasonable pilot (two small teams head to head implementing a realistic system), and if any organization has actually gathered data, it would be the crown jewel of proprietary knowledge. Not something you would ever open source.
The only thing I can say is that an immature field is one with opportunities left. If you can figure out how to jump the hurdles you can make a huge impact.
You're right, no trials on methodology that resemble something like clinical trials. And of course the reason for that is it would be incredibly expensive to even run a reasonable pilot (two small teams head to head implementing a realistic system), and if any organization has actually gathered data, it would be the crown jewel of proprietary knowledge. Not something you would ever open source.
The only thing I can say is that an immature field is one with opportunities left. If you can figure out how to jump the hurdles you can make a huge impact.
PS, an example of a bug study like I mentioned (this isn't even that great but just goes to show how hard any sort of software study is): https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.acolyer.org/2018/06/28/how...