Your answers so far help highlight the fact that we have absolutely no idea. Essentially this is a metaphysical and philosophical question and scientists are not particularly good at philosophy.

There is nothing intrinsically or philosophically different about quantum mechanics that would suggest it isn't deterministic, despite the assertions that this somehow answers your question. There are theories that support a determinist universe and theories that don't, but demonstrating which represents our reality is not a simple matter.

As humans that believe in free will we naturally reject the notion of determinism. That only hinders our understanding of the universe, because a scientific approach needs neutrality.

Naturally, when a scientific model came along that emphasised probability, entanglement and observation many people latched onto that as rejection of determinism. This could be seen as an unhelpful bias.

By this stage in the model we are pretty much into the realms of pure mathematics, and unfortunately mathematics is a part of physical reality which means logically it cannot model or totally explain physical reality. Which is partially why we refer to such things as singularities. The points at which we cannot go further because our models break down and meaningful information can no longer be extrapolated.

So my critique of your bullet points would be that they are seeking to criticise a system and model as being inadequate, when the model and modellers are well aware of that inadequacy and that is the very thing that people like Hawking and his team were wrestling with for many years.

That isn't to undermine your central point, that the endeavour of popular science is to use analogies with simpler concepts to express complex ideas to the wider population.

But, you seem to be somehow attacking that endeavour or at least trying to suggest it is somehow "romanticised" or to use the word I think you want to say, "lying".

Only a very small percentage of the population are remotely interested in going deeper into the maths and physics of these first moments of the universe and what they imply. But, those fields are equally well represented in popular science, all be it slightly less 'best selling'.