That's a fair point. Maybe researchers needed to delve into all sorts of weird parser theories, to later figure out that they weren't that needed. Practicioneers mainly know the final result, but aren't usually interested in the full history of how people got to that conclusion.

But I think during the recent decades, there has been a consensus that perverse incentives in academia are degrading research quality and preventing papers from becoming actually usable in real-life applications (mainly with the focus of paper metrics and the constant need to apply for grants). So although I think academia is still important long-term, I understand why some people would think it's becoming less useful.