The goal in the eyes of the layman is to produce a stable fusion reaction that outputs more than input.

While this is great progress, I feel that it's important to have the full picture. There's a lot of "fusion reaction breakthrough fatigue" stemming from the misunderstanding that fusion power isn't a technology that requires a singular breakthrough.

There are many breakthroughs required to get to fusion powered energy, and this is an important one (worth celebrating) on a long road ahead.