What is Reddit's opinion of The Dawning of Gauge Theory?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Actually, our current theories of the various forces (gauge theories) came about exactly as a result of trying that. In general relativity, the key idea can be boiled down to "one can only compare directions locally", i.e. to compare two directions (tangent vectors) you need to specify how to parallel transport them to the same point. Requiring some straightforward consistency and picking the obvious Lagrangian for the resulting field theory then gives GR. Hermann Weyl asked the question "what if size (i.e. gauge) is also only locally comparable?". Miraculously, the equations of electromagnetism falls out! The paper was published, with a footnote by Einstein himself saying that the mathematics was beautiful, but it could not be physically true since it would imply that emission spectra of atoms (which depend on physical size) might change from place to place, and it is an astrophysical fact that they do not. Nowadays, we understand that Weyl was off by a factor of i: he used the gauge group R instead of U(1) --- these two topological groups are locally the same, so give the same equations.

So in summary, yes, people have, and it's called the Standard Model.

EDIT: this is the booking from which I cite: http://www.amazon.com/Dawning-Gauge-Theory-Lochlainn-ORaifeartaigh/dp/0691029776