Until there's real data to prove that, I'd say that's just a great excuse for the people in power to keep themselves in power or keep the power to themselves.
It's not data, but it is well documented that the founding fathers were scared of direct democracy and took measures to protect against it (electoral college). I agree that is does smell like a fishy excuse to keep power consolidated, but data doesn't always do well when political philosophy has been entrenched for centuries.
You are right, and that's a big problem. I don't get this obsession with the founding fathers. Those guys are not around anymore. The US is a completely different country now with completely different people. We need to stop going back to the founding fathers for reference, especially when their views only serve to further entrench the people in power and keep it away from the people they are supposed to represent.
We also have data now, and for what we don't have data we should be running experiments and collecting data to make better decisions.
