I am not sure that physists do. Many of the physics I know seem to subscribe to the “Shut up and calculate” school of physics where they say all of these things are a model that gives results that correspond to the experiments.
Yes, and they say this at the same time as they say share plenty of stories about alternative formulations that work as well but rejected because they lack "elegance" or whatever, and somehow they do not see any conflict in this. It's a weird kind of denial of making first principle assumptions.
True but if you have two alternates that are of equal predictive power then the choice between them can be totally arbitrary.
With the contrast she made between WIMPs+tiredlight and Higgs+bigbang, I think she suggested that when both languages have equal predictive power, one should choose the language that is consistent with existing definitions. If a new language confuses definitions and creates the appearance of paradoxes, it is not a good language. This is drawn out in some of her other articles.
That only is really true in a proverbial vacuum - the choice will still affect the context within which these alternates exist. And as such, it will influence the perception of other measurements and the different options that will be explored to explain new data, so it really is not that arbitrary at all.