Progress via either the top down or bottom-up approaches depends upon understanding strongly interacting systems. In the bottom-up approach we need to understand strong interactions for two reasons. First, to extract the values of parameters in the standard model we need to interpret data within controlled approximations. Many observables of interest involve strong interactions, and thus our measurements of these observables are only useful if we can treat strong interaction effects. Secondly, I believe that the theory that underlies the standard model is itself a strongly interacting theory that will explain the hierarchy between the weak scale and the Planck scale as well as unify the forces.
New experiments promise to advance our quest in the coming decade.
A few years later, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will begin exploring higher energies in search of new physics beyond the standard model. Thus many new pieces of the puzzle will start to fall into place and particle physics will enter the next level of understanding. Nature has a history of giving us great surprises such as quantum mechanics, which completely changed our picture of the world.