This argument completely ignores anything statistical, which is another limiting factor. It reminds me of the difference in bandit research and full RL research

This argument completely ignores anything statistical, which is another limiting factor. It reminds me of the difference in bandit research and full RL research. RL researchers are fine throwing a thousand years of experience at their algorithm, because it can be simulated. Meanwhile people using bandits in the real world care about statistical efficiency (learning lots with little data), and it's reflected in the research. Most decisions aren't made with a huge abundance of data (most of us aren't google or facebook).