The key difference is that hypotheses are falsifiable. ID isn't.
Flat out wrong. Many Hypothesis never get beyond the hypothesis stage. Dark matter is one example. It is niether able to be shown to exist or not exist. It may never be able to be proven or disproven. Go ask a real scientist if a hypothesis is unworthy of exploration since we are currently unable to prove it. A HUGE amount of our scientific breakthroughs came looong after the hypothesis, and were unprovable at the time the hypothesis was made. The Atom is one good example.. first theorized in Ancient Greece. In your way of thinking, since it was unprovable, it was useless exploration, and should have been discarded for all time.