Fair points. And likely why I'm not suited to academia too. I've just never really groked the practice. I've obviously only experience from bachelor's and masters but it always seems that you have an idea and the research is finding papers to back it up, and then some that might not. The work you do doesn't really matter as it seems secondary to the nonsense around "the literature".
In what, that does not align at all with my experience in the sciences (where the point is the novelty, not summarise the literature)?