Arguably yes, in a commercial sense. To give the fusion folks some credit, they haven't been promising that commercial products are "just around the corner" for the last 30 years the way QC people have, and the quacks (cold fusion) were excised from the field for making those false promises. I do think that if your field as a whole continually makes huge promises and never delivers, it should probably tarnish that field's reputation.

However, if you're thinking about research grants, no. That's the point of research grants.