Chris,
Thanks for the remarks on my essay. I've also answered them on my page. Your essay does a great job of showing up the absurdities currently implied by quantum mechanics. I especially liked your examination of "where does the charge go?" and "where does the mass go?" when the electron is in its 'unphysical' state before being measured.
Having just re-read John Bell' 1990 paper "Against 'Measurement'" where he finds various QM authorities in conflict with each other and appears to want to 'bring back' the deBroglie-Bohm 'pilot wave' by searching for a way to stop the 'spreading' of the electron wave-function, I am once again struck by the fact that so many on this site are so sure about quantum mechanics, despite Feynman's contention that no one understands it and despite Bell's clear confusion about fundamental issues.
You mention EPR and Bell and note that Bell's inequality has "since been put to the test many times." If you have not yet had a chance to read Joy Christian's work here, you might wish to do so. If Bell's inequality was wrongly calculated [as I believe] then all of the so-called 'violations' of the inequality mean absolutely nothing!
You ask the fascinating question, "Is there any explanation why a photon and an electron will produce the same pattern in a double slit experiment?" Excellent question! The explanation is shown on page 6 of my essay where the C-field circulation induced by the 'particle' momentum "looks the same" for both photons and electrons, and it is the C-field that interacts with the mass surrounding the slits. Note that the C-field does not 'carry' the particle, like the Bohm 'quantum potential'. The relation between the C-field wave circulation and the momentum of the particle is Lenz-law-like as described in my essay. If one changes, the other changes.
And I loved your question about identity while 'spread out'. Why doesn't the 'disappeared' electron re-appear as a muon? [A cheeseburger is not realistic.]
The wave-function (on page 6 in my essay) may achieve Bell's goal of 'stopping the spreading' when the C-field equation is taken into account, but I need to convince myself first.
So thank you for reading my essay (it may make more sense the next time) and thanks for writing an excellent essay yourself. Good luck in the contest.
Edwin Eugene Klingman