That's 'cos you still don't understand them Anyone who groups the two together so naively will never be taken seriously. Dark energy has always been half expected by those of us in theoretical phsyics and was no real surprise - though a fantastic discovery. How does that equate to a fudge?
I grouped them in the sense I could see a paradigm shift happening in both areas, not that they were both interrelated and/or the same.
And in what sense are you saying 'half-expected' ? In the sense 'it was predicted' or in the sense 'the theory could accomodate it' ? (or maybe some other sense)
Dark matter on the other hand was a surprise, and requires a much more complex answer. However, the vast majority of observations suggest that cold dark matter (WIMPs) forms the primary component, as opposed to just about every other conceivable way of changing physics to accomodate observation.
Of course, you can hypothezise new undetectable particles to accomodate observation, just as you can add epicyles on a geocentric system to make it fit the observations. And it'll work.
But that's the whole idea of a paradigm shift. It attacks the problem from a whole new angle (maybe the sun is at the center ?). Likewise, New physics shouldn't be discarded, especially if they come in the form of complementing General Relativity in the same way it itself complemented Newton's Universal gravity.
Critics seem to have this bizarre notion that we guess an answer that seems cool, and then consider the problem solved. Although a tempting way of working, surprisingly real science does not progress this way...
But of course, this is not what I did. I still consider this problem to be wide-open in the scientific community.