S-Matrix was the beginning of fifty years of string and SUSY leading no where beyond some interesting maths (imho). I call it an industry because of the number of people involved and the self-preservation need to keep the funding going.
I would disagree with the idea that the theoretical community decides where efforts should be focused - who ever is paying the bills ultimately makes that decision. Clearly, there are groups within interest areas that make recommendations to those agencies and nominally propose long term plans. But no dollars, no research - plans or not. Communities also tend towards preserving the status quo rather than cutting losses, splitting up and moving on to new things.
If there was more pushback from the funders we would not have seen so many working in and around string theory and susy for such a very long time with so little to show for it. That is not to say nobody should do such research, just that at some point someone has to say this no longer looks like it warrants the effort of so many, bring some new ideas/areas of research for the majority of you.
In the case of HEP experimentalists, the problem is magnified as the monies involved are very large as are the number of people, many of whom have nothing directly to do with physics (techs, etc). CERN quotes a figure of 17,500 including 2500 of their own staff. All involved have a very vested interest in making sure things do not change meaningfully and that upgrades continue to be made to LHC until funding is secured for another collider.
Otherwise where do they go? The notion that it is not in the best interest of the entire physics community or the wider public tends to fall on deaf ears when your career and paycheck are on the cutting block.