> A hypothesis was made, a few hypertexts were produced, but before the experiment yielded significant results the hypothesis was validated, which derailed the field for a decade.

I think this assertion might not be supported by the evidence. Yes, there exists a substantial secondary literature on hypertext, but there even in the early ’90s, there were many hypertexts one could read and study.

In any case, criticism *typically* proceeds through widespread discussion of some widely known work. A great deal has also been written, for example, about Impressionism in painting. The movement itself occupied perhaps a few dozen painters for a period of a decade or two; a less expansive definition would say that in involved no more than thirty artists over the course of no more than twelve years. Hundreds of critics and historians have subsequently written about Impressionism.

Your conclusion is flatly wrong, in my opinion, and tendentious; you don’t specify what expectations you mean, or in what sense the theory did not “survive” these expectations.