Nonsense. The cited article sets up straw man arguements and a ridiculous flawed archaeologist analogy while lamenting that every new thought has not somehow spawned a search strategy. You correctly stated that several searches for Dyson shells have been made, q.v. IRAS data analsys. That's the only effective response so far I've seen to these new ideas. Some ideas such as searching for advanced Kardashev civs have seen half-hearted efforts. Again they lack a well thought out implementable strategy.

If there is an implementable method of searching the solar system for Bracewell probes, certainly not a 'new' idea, I'd like to hear it and also the case by SETI Institute types against such searches.

Sure we're searching for the keys under the streetlight but that's because we have no evidence that the keys might not actually be there. The critics need to come up with rational ways to search outside in the dark. Where are such specific proposals in this whining article? Didn't read any.

The authors mistake innate human and scientific conservatism and momentum for some concerted effort to avoid exploring the new paradigms. In fact the paradigms need to be established, discussed and thought given to viable search strategies. The supposed lack of papers is only the fault of the proponents themselves. Is there somewhere evidence that such papers are not approved for publication?