Re "can always be integrated out".
It's not clear to me what is being asserted.
It's true that, in Hidden Markov Models, for example, there is indeed a lot of integrating out. I have a whole chapter on "Stochastic Volatility as a Hidden Markov Model" in my "Option Valuation under Stochastic Volatility II" book.
Separately, Dupire/Gyongy theory does a lot of integrating out of univariate or multivariate stochastic volatility in the construction of a local volatility surface for diffusions.
However, there remains the problem of "re-calibration".
In any event, if you can make/prove a careful statement about the application of your theory to data generating processes with additional state variables (hidden or not), my suggestion is to include that in your paper.