Wyss says "Seismologists agree that foreshocks are a symptom of some preparatory process to the main rupture." - Not the last I heard. Maybe there is a preparatory process, more likely there is not.

Aceves says "VAN experiment (5) is still being actively debated and considered as a viable prediction tool." - maybe then, now VAN is dead.

"potentially large payoff that can be realized from a successful prediction" - presumably, clearing people out of the worst building, which might collapse, keeping people off dangerous overpasses, preparing for the numerous landslides that might strike in an earthquake during a wet winter, allowing businesses to prepare for the disruption so that fewer people lose their jobs in the disruption afterwards, among other advantages. If Kobe had warning of their 1995 quake, far fewer than 5000 people would have died. The US has not had the misfortune of such an event yet.