Did we read the same article? Pilot wave theory has the same mathematics as quantum mechanics. It's a different interpretation of those mathematics - the probability wave is real and physical.
In these droplet experiments, you can measure all you want without affecting the wave and the interference pattern. This might point to an analogous form of quantum mechanics. But it also could be just an interesting but incomplete analogy in classical physics.
The analogy isn't a problem. The fact that there's nothing small enough to observe photons like we can observe the oil is a problem, but it says nothing about the integrity of the analogy.
In the analogy the water is space-time, meaning "observing" the droplet like we observe photons would require shooting another droplet past or into the first droplet.