I think it's just something the field has to work out. Certainly there is a lot of over the top, "post-empirical" theorizing, multiverses come to mind. Yet it does go much deeper into the history, "time traveling through wormholes in the fabric of spacetime" comes to mind.

As I keep trying to point out, there isn't any physical dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. It's called "causality" and "conservation of energy." Cause becomes effect. The event of the batter hitting the ball, then running the bases, as the ball flies away can't co-exist, because the energy has converted from cause to effect. That is the most basic physics. Yet the field is captivated by the usefulness of math. Somehow the abstraction is taken to be more real that what it has been abstracted from. Yes, math is fiendishly complicated, but only a mere fraction as complex as the reality it attempts to model.

Probably, like lots of things, when the money starts to run short and there doesn't seem to be much further use for string theory, etc, it will fade, as salaries are cut. Otherwise, as long as the money is poured in the hole, people will keep digging in it.