Price as a market signal precedes neoliberalism by several decades to several millennia, depending on which economic historian you speak with. Is your argument that basic research which has no immediately attributable applications is better handled by publicly funded research? I mostly agree to that. Applied research is definitely handled better by commercial firms and nonprofits when handling is defined by what people are willing to value (pay for).

If we're talking about applied technology in the public goods space, then it can be a toss up. Sustainability research, for example, can be quite blurry as to whether the market is pricing it in or not as applied or basic research -- really depends on how a government handles externalities and regulatory capture!

I'll 100% agree to government entities as well as some well-chartered public entities being absolutely awesome at setting up incentive structures for desired outcomes. There is actually a whole field of research dedicated to the topic of incentive structuring called mechanism design -- think of it as the converse to Game Theory and strategic behavioral analysis -- that policy design and analysis learn from.

I'll also note that governments aren't structured to efficiently provide benefits or just-in-time delivery in most situations. Though the discussion has made me more curious about how operationally efficient the DOD is for civilian goods distribution, given it supports a massive population.