Producing, understanding, and testing the vast number of chemical interactions are vastly different fields of chemistry (and biology). There are many researcher

Producing, understanding, and testing the vast number of chemical interactions are vastly different fields of chemistry (and biology). There are many researchers working on understanding the basics of electrochemistry which can lead to a better understanding of this phenomena, even if they're not specifically looking at this example. However, those are probably in the minority compared to these "Edison-style" scientists, as you call them, and for good reason. Phenomena not yet explained by scientific cannon are vastly outnumbered by the possible number of configurations and combinations of chemicals that we have yet to explore. We can't just dedicate every chemist in the world to the problem of understanding the fundamental laws of chemistry and hope to get anywhere. Science just doesn't work like that. Identifying and testing chemicals that have applications in medicine or industry has massive impact all over the world and is easy relative to a fundamental understanding of nature. What use would science be if it was mostly dedicated to understanding, instead of applying its knowledge to the needs of its people? Besides, what we can discover and learn about the natural world is often heavily limited by the progress of technology, especially in industry. The incredible proliferation of personal computers and the constant downward force on cost and energy consumption of CPUs, GPUs, and storage in the last two decades has made the LHC possible today. Imagine building a super computer 20 years ago just to store, let alone analyze, all of the data coming out of the collider's instruments. We may have lots of technology to take snapshots or do "traces" of chemical reactions but we are still quite limited in our ability to "see" live chemical reactions (and the methods require expensive equipment).