Replying to my own comment to explain how it directly relates to the asked question - what to do with empirical research?
The key takeaway is to evaluate everything in terms of sensitivity because it gives you design insight. The above quoted study identifies one insensitive factor (order) and one sensitive factor (iteration length) of interleaving test and code. Now you can choose, modify, or design any test method as long as you do short interleaving. The order is something you don't have to worry about. If the research doesn't reveal anything about the sensitivity, don't worry about it until someone figures it out, your beliefs are probably wrong and inconsequential anyway.
The key takeaway is to evaluate everything in terms of sensitivity because it gives you design insight. The above quoted study identifies one insensitive factor (order) and one sensitive factor (iteration length) of interleaving test and code. Now you can choose, modify, or design any test method as long as you do short interleaving. The order is something you don't have to worry about. If the research doesn't reveal anything about the sensitivity, don't worry about it until someone figures it out, your beliefs are probably wrong and inconsequential anyway.