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I can't speak for Fred, but I'm no faculty scientist. I'm one of those non-faculty scientists you claim are the saviors of us all.

No, Fred is absolutely right, we, as scientists, are quite open to those theories that pass the test of matching experiments, both past and present, and will continue to consider such theories as potentially viable so long as they do pass said test. (Of course we'll tend to the most simple theory/explanation, all else being equal. Good ol' Occam's razor.)

There are a number of viable alternatives to General Relativity (GR) as contenders for a theory of gravity. All but one, that I know of (that have risen to the point of viability), have "tweak-able" parameters, and their parameters keep getting pushed closer and closer to being identical with General Relativity.

On the Quantum Mechanics (QM) side: I have often lamented that Quantum Mechanics is "too good for its own good", meaning that there are no viable alternatives (no alternatives have been able to be at least as good as Quantum Mechanics at matching experiments). If there exists a viable alternative (one that matches all experiments done so far), I'm more than willing to check it out!

Most serious physicists, I believe, recognize that while we have these two great theories (GR and QM), which are unsurpassed in their respective realms, there's a problem when venturing into realms that, logically, should require both or some combination thereof. GR and QM don't play well together! So there "must" be something missing, or something better.

The search for that "something better" has been going on for at least 50 years (maybe nearly 100 years, now, depending on when you "start the clock"). Unfortunately, I don't consider any of the alternatives I know of, at this time, to be quite there, yet. (Loop Quantum Gravity has some appeal to me, but I don't ascribe to it, yet. I have my own ideas, but they're not quite to the theory stage, yet. The problem would be far easier to solve if we had some viable experiments within this realm where both QM and GR should be used, but we don't have particle accelerators that are nearly powerful enough; and while some Cosmic Rays may be powerful enough it's very hard to get good statistics. If we could come by a nice microscopic "black hole" on which we could do experiments, that would really fit the bill!)

So, while we are open to viable new ideas, the hard hurdle that most seem unwilling or unable to pass is being able to match all known experiments. However, that is the critical point that must be satisfied by all theories that wish to be considered as viable. (Even GR and QM had to each satisfy this hurdle before they could be considered.)

So, if you know of something that satisfies this criteria, I'm all ears.

David