The last chapter in the history of classical electrodynamics is of course the theory of relativity. As was previously mentioned, people eagerly searched for the special reference frame traveling the speed of light. This culminated in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, and others like it,which at the time, confused many physicists. Until one day, Albert Einstein hypothesized there is no such reference frame at all; which became the theory of relativity, another purely theoretical result. Einstein did thought experiments instead of real experiments. There was a tendency, which continues today, that more people want to develop the theory instead of performing experiments. The history of electrodynamics evidences this tendency. It is hard to say whether or not this trend is good or bad for physics in general, however since physics is a science which describes nature, the experiment should never be discounted.
Reference
1. J.D.Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics Third Edition, 1998, Wiley.