I want to make my stance clear.

Bell's theorem rules out local hidden variables, not hidden variables. An ontology-first approach to QM (rare in modern physics) takes Bell as the constraint it has to operate inside (same as Bohm-de Broglie) rather than as a settled debate.

The Bohr-Einstein debate wasn't adjudicated on substance. Copenhagen won sociologically, and the renewed traffic on it is the field acknowledging that "settled" was always a cultural claim.

My analysis is on diagnosing the methodological inversion that produced the impasse, rather than picking sides inside it.