I think one very important principle you ignore here are the implications of what might be called the generalized weak efficient markets hypothesis. When it appears that DIY research based on publicly available information offers a potential for huge gains, the first thing one should ask oneself is why everyone (or at least a large number of smart and capable people) isn't already doing the same thing with obvious success. Often this is enough to write off the idea as a priori unworthy of consideration. Thus, for example, it can be safely concluded without further consideration that it's an infeasible idea to try getting rich based on studying the publicly available information about billionaires, or to improve one's investment strategy by studying the behavior of the stock market.

There are of course exceptions, but they're very few and far between, so one should embark on a project that contradicts this principle only if there is some very good indication that it might be an exceptional situation. (For example, it might be that the idea really is too clever to have ever occurred to anyone, or there might be some systematic biases limiting its adoption, or it might be that everyone is in fact already doing it, only you've been oblivious about it so far. However, for most people, only the third thing is less than extremely rare.)

The principle is very general, in my opinion useful in a great multitude of cases and with a whole bunch of interesting implications. I'll consider writing an article about it.