I actually submitted a version of this yesterday, but then deleted it, because it didn't seem relevant to Hacker News. Problem is, there are so many models in String Theory, I don't think this negative result will be a significant detriment for stringy researchers. From what I know, string theory is more of a framework than a concrete theory.
From TFA:
Contrary to some reports, this result doesn't mean the death of string theory, only the particular flavor that predicted black holes at these energies...
There's definitely hard-to-understand ("high level) physics and easier stuff, but the former shouldn't get extra breaks just because it's overcomplicated... It should be a detriment.
If by this you mean that this should pressure the researchers to look for elegant ways to simplify the theory, I agree. But we have to wade through the muck first.
On the other hand we have to keep in mind that such a desire for simplicity (or at least elegance) is really a "human condition" and a judgement. There is no a priori reason why the "ultimate" theory shouldn't be, to our minds, extraordinarily complicated.
You're right that theories (whether they're "ultimate" or just effective theories) don't have to be simple. In fact, as a physics student I spent many semesters studying QFTs, QED, SM and QCD (our current proven and accepted theories) at University, and believe me, they're not simple or beautiful or whatever. (At least not in the sense that a programmer would call something simple or beautiful.)
Whoever tells you that they are is trying to sell you a pop.sci. book or article.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When I studied quantum physics, I definitely thought it was beautiful, in the same way that I find some algorithms astonishingly elegant.
To your point of the beholder: I find/found the ideas of quantum mechanics beautiful, but I find the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics much more beautiful. I see QM as sort of messy...
...until second quantization (and some Dirac-notation formulations of perturbation theory). Those I enjoyed.
As far as I understand (not being a mathematician/physicist), it's a unification framework rather than one theory. As a framework, it's not right or wrong, but can be fertile or infertile (akin to what philosophy is to logic, string theory would be to physics). If a (the?) TOE is found among string theories, the approach would have been fertile.
String theories are not quite like religion in that they are falsifiable, just usually not falsifiable within current technical possibilities. This experiment in the OP falsified one of the lower energy possibilities.
With this in mind, though, it may be more useful to support research closer to applied fields. That is, if public money is supporting the string theory industry, a cut in that direction would be appropriate.
From TFA:
Contrary to some reports, this result doesn't mean the death of string theory, only the particular flavor that predicted black holes at these energies...