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yup. Here's a 2004 topic from Patrick Henry (physicist I think, banned now):

Global Team Of Physicists Upends Standard Model With Discovery Of Neutrino Oscillation, Mass

Here's a relevant reprise:

Ernest Lawrence, a pure experimentalist... said, "Don't you worry about it -- the theorists will find a way to make them all the same." -- Alvarez by Luis Alvarez (page 184)

I must reiterate my feeling that experimentalists always welcome the suggestions of the theorists. But the present situation is ridiculous... In my considered opinion the peer review system, in which proposals rather than proposers are reviewed, is the greatest disaster to be visited upon the scientific community in this century. No group of peers would have approved my building the 72-inch bubble chamber. Even Ernest Lawrence told me that he thought I was making a big mistake. He supported me because my track record was good. I believe U.S. science could recover from the stultifying effects of decades of misguided peer reviewing if we returned to the tried-and-true method of evaluating experimenters rather than experimental proposals. Many people will say that my ideas are elitist, and I certainly agree. The alternative is the egalitarianism that we now practice and that I've seen nearly kill basic science in the USSR and in the People's Republic of China. -- ibid (pp 200-201)

Great old thread you linked. To be sure, many of the old scientists are gone from FR; a shame really but IMHO they mostly brought it on themselves. While believers seem willing to cede some turf to the "scientific method", athiests are unwilling to cede ANYTHING to believers. Irresistable force meeting immovable object is always good for some fireworks but JR found the fireworks were becoming way too raucous AND rancorous apparently.

Seem to recall reading that opinion by Alvarez before. I think with rare exceptions he had it exactly bass-awkards. The Cult of Personality ain't no way to run a railroad either. Anyhow, wasn't Alvarez a bit full of himself???