Just some superquick thoughts...
Regarding "TL" from wikipedia:
Despite periodic re-examination of the concept, tired light has not been supported by observational tests and remains a fringe topic in astrophysics.[4]
It is not very reliable to use a component to build a model that has "no support from observations". This is a theoretical result, I don't mind them doing this work, one needs to do these things to understand the various aspects of a problem.
From one of Gutas papers, re. "CCC" (I think they are referencing the "CCC" here at least):
A scalar-tensor theory of gravity is considered [...]
Yeah, it is not generally a good idea to just throw in more components, like here a scalar. I'm guessing it cannot be the inflaton, since it is has to matter for late-time cosmology, so they either have to explain why this scalar has not been found by the LHC or that it is the Higgs. Maybe they do?
The paper linked in the article is also about fitting some cosmological data. Does it still explain galaxy rotations? What about other cosmological data, like equation of state parameter and such?
I'd say this is very teoretical work, on some quite unstable legs. I would not throw out the ΛCDM+dark matter just yet.