I don't think they haven't figured out anything super fundamental. There's a bunch of fusion companies all with aggressive time schedules that are aiming to gen

I don't think they haven't figured out anything super fundamental. There's a bunch of fusion companies all with aggressive time schedules that are aiming to generate electricity within the next 5 years or so. What you've missed is that most scientists have been expecting electricity will be generated from fusion soon for the past 10 years or so, almost definitely before ITER comes online. The development of High-temperature superconducting tape basically guarantees it.