Does targeting research towards 'more promising' fields actually produce greater economic returns?
The only exception is if some research reveals nothing. Though this isn't a useful claim: "it doesn't work" still revealed something.
Particle physics has told us a lot about the base nature of our model and the affirmation of the standard model. The fruits of these labors still take decades to make their mark on our world.
And, we still are working on those other things at the same time too. It turns out with 8 billion people on the planet and modern technology we can get an absolute fuckload done at once.