Another is that criticising epi. doesn't show that there is a workable physical explanation of consciousness.

I feel like it's gets halfway there though. Once you accept epiphenomenalism is nonsense, you are left with something like nonmaterial "souls" at best. That there is some real force that actually interacts with the world, and could be, in principle, observed, experimented with, and modelled in something like a computer simulation. Some chain of causes and effects lead you to say you "feel conscious", and that chain could be, in principle, understood.

That seems to take all the magic out of it though. It's no longer something that's "beyond science". It's some set of laws that could be understood just like physics, just not the physics we know currently. If you are uncomfortable with the idea that we are "just atoms", and don't feel like that explains qualia or experience, just getting new laws of physics isn't going to help. Then you have to confront the idea that maybe physics can explain experience.