[oersted]

Of course, but such a theory doesn't pop out of nowhere. Like in any technical field, new paradigms are always inferior to the incumbent on key metrics, and need room to be nurtured for long periods.

My perception is that there's a cultural issue suppressing the investigation of the causes of quantum mechanics, making it much harder for a better theory to flourish.

It's also really-really hard. If you take my earlier example, the probabilistic theory of the coin-flip is worlds apart in terms of complexity from a real understanding of the forces acting on the coin when it's flipped. It's a massive gap to jump over, you have to come at it from another easier and longer path, like it was done with classical physics.