I regard good research as research which achieves the intended research outcomes in the research situation. Sometimes that is action research and sometimes it isn't. Let me now respond in turn to your claims, as I understand them. You say that action research privileges external events, and empiricism, at the expense of intersubjective meanings. To an extent I agree.
Action research is intended to act in the world, and thus pays more attention to that world.
Further, it is the child of its parents and embodies the philosophy of its time. Given the purpose of action research, this does not concern me unduly. In a further respect I disagree. Much of action research is participative. Those understandings which people develop about their situation are coloured by the meanings they attribute to their experience.