Am not certain about what to make of this complaint.
Having a professional background in fluvial dynamics and a smattering of particle physics, I would say that water particle physics IS constantly being addressed in the 3D world, and has been for at least the last fifteen years. Next Limit made the best breakthroughs early on by developing the idea of individual "intelligent" particles and controlling forces for them into a practical software product. (I've been working with it since Version 1.0.) (There were many earlier products and lab exercises, but all these were too limited to be practical.)
Then almost all the major software developers (Autodesk, etc.) developed their own volumetric technology products, although to achieve "fluid-like" effects rather than to replicate particle physics processes. But their purpose was to create 3D effects that looked like fluids. Next Limit added those kind of simulation solvers to their basic product, and continued to expand the abilities of their solvers along the lines of physically accurate particle physics. Lots of stuff going on in the major research labs, in terms of 3D fluvial dynamics, but all focused on individual phenomenon, such as bubble and foam formation. Some of the techniques adopted by companies such as Autodesk and Next Limit and incorporated into their products.
Then Houdini arrived with a fairly complete grid volumetric technology. Miles away from particle physics processes as we know them, but able to create large-scale effects (whirlpools, floods and smoke) in a computationally practical manner. Which is what most graphics artists want. ( Not as good as Next Limit's Realflow product in terms of ability to create a large variety of particle physics or fluid dynamic processes with lots of control features, but there's not such a large market for those features, of course.)
Anyhow, just my personal opinion from always watching the developments in the research labs, but it seems to me that people are always hammering on these problems of liquid simulations. That is, these things are always being addressed and have been under constant development for at least 15 years that I know of.
As a user of both Houdini and Realflow, I don't seem to have problems of creating and working with turbulence, wetting, absorbtion, fluid object interactions, or even bubbles. Also, I'm not sure why you claim that these things aren't done "in a truely accurate manner" - at least as far as I can tell as a professional hydrologist. Could you clarify this a bit ? Maybe give us some further detail or examples of what you mean. Just trying to understand you.