I tend to understand 'controversial' here as a shorthand for new theories not explaining some observations. There's lots of good evidence for the models that require dark matter and dark energy (which I also understand to be very different), so if you want to propose an alternative model it must do at least as well as those.

My second belief is that popular science articles are not good at explaining nuance, and tend to focus on human factors. Both of these are fine for lay audiences but should probably not be used to judge the health of the scientific process itself