I admire your stance but consider this hypothesis: nothing is better than nonsense. Most research leads to nothing. Knowledge is better than ignorance but research funding isn't unlimited. I estimated the average biology paper to cost several hundred thousand dollars if it didn't involve animals and a million if it did. Does the parameter you find or establish even justify such a cost? Most of my and my colleagues work really didn't change anything in my opinion. Even if some of us didn't want to be useless like this, we had no choice. The system just forces you to do these projects. The only way to beat this system is to get out of it. That's what I did. I hope to start a garage lab sometime and do whatever I want as you say. At least I won't be taking public funding and I hope I might find something better without those limits after all.