Research

Around 10% researchers actually know what they are doing and why are they doing. The rest have found shelter in the success of those 10% to pass good time, work/not work on any thing they want to under the pretext of research. And moreover call themselves researchers.
Research is not research unless you have a passion from inside. A direction from your heart. Its not a phd degree. Its a direction in which you want to look for answers to questions which have troubled you all your life. You say at one point of time, enough, Now Iwill leave evrything that I am doing and get down to looking for these answers. You dont need a PhD for that. PhD is a subsequence of your quest and not the other way round. Although other way round is not possible, if you dont have the urge to find out before a PhD, you are not going to have it after that.
And it is because of the second category that we have such meaningless papers. What the hell are you going to achieve by reducing the complexity from O(n^1.5) to O(n^1.34). OK you have imroved the efficiency but you are still not close to the real problem. You are not at the base of the problem. It will have industrial importance. But that is not why reseachers work. Doing such a thing cannot satiate any researcher. And if you dont believe that 90% papers are crap, next time you look for papers, think about whether it would have satisfied you had you produced that. Research: Its not a paper printing press, its a thirst that needs to be satiated.
Socrates, Plato, Newton, these were the real researchers. They had a problem troubling them and they gave up their daily life to look for them.
Unless you have an urge, dont do it.