It sounds like you're arguing that people wouldn't understand new results if they were more open. Most people I know well are educated/intelligent and could understand leading-edge research results within their own field, so I disagree. (And I don't work at a university!)

Even if only a minority of the public understood publicly-available research, having all results open could change the way the world works. It was hard to see how the information-sharing of the internet would change the world, so I can understand how this is hard to see as well.

You also hint that science deserves more wide-spread respect, and that the world be better off if people were better educated and tended to be more scientifically-minded. I agree with that!