I agree, but for different reasons: I think the terms "dark matter" and "dark energy", like "black holes" and "wormholes", have assumed certain semantic qualit

I agree, but for different reasons: I think the terms "dark matter" and "dark energy", like "black holes" and "wormholes", have assumed certain semantic qualities that are out of proportion to their physics meanings simply because they sound cool and edgy, like something from sci-fi. The popularization of physics is a ultimately a significant source of funding for physics, along various vectors, and so terms like this are incredibly valuable to the field, regardless of how poorly descriptive they are. In any case, physicists working in the field know what the terms mean: a huge bag of observations that are inconsistent with basic theories that we know to be incomplete.