For the record, here are some of my thoughts explaining why I focus on so much scholarship, in no particular order.

First, research is something I'm good at. I've spent a lot of time doing it, and I can do it fairly efficiently. I've developed heuristics for determining very quickly whether something is likely to be useful to my project or not. I know how to figure out which terms are used to describe the concepts of a field that is new to me, and bring myself up to speed very quickly by finding survey articles and review articles and Handbook chapters and so on. Also, I have a pretty strong work ethic and some limited mastery over procrastination - both of which are required for long "literature slogs." So research is a comparative advantage of mine as compared to, say, making cutting-edge advances in AI or decision theory or statistics or neuroscience.

Second, I know that I almost always prefer well-researched writing to poorly-researched writing. I prefer when people name-drop the people or concepts or articles relevant to the topic they are discussing, whether or not they were partially motivated to do so by a desire for prestige. Why? Because then if I don't understand something, I can google those names and concepts and articles and answer my own questions without having to bother the original author. Lots of times, the author doesn't have time to respond, or else he or she can't remember where they got that original idea, or what the name of that fascinating discovery was, and so on. And then it takes a really long time to track it down. Because I always prefer names and concept names and article references in articles I read, I try to provide such things in articles that I write.

Also, it saves me time. Including names and concepts and articles related to the article saves me from having to answer the same question from 20 people about "What's the name of the study that demonstrated X?" I can say instead, "Check the footnote" or "Google 'Bentham'."

Probably, there is unconscious motivation to include more footnotes and names and concept titles because doing so will cause some people to take me seriously. We're signaling creatures, after all. Sometimes, the motivation even slips into my conscious mind and I notice it. Usually, I acknowledge that motivation, and then decide to include the extra footnote anyway. Why? Because whatever my motivation for including it, at the end of the day the consequences are good: more people can look up the ideas I'm writing about on their own without bothering me, I can find the source of that idea later if I forget, and so on. I'm a consequentialist, not a Kantian. I don't think acts are good because they come from a pure, unadulterated, unselfish will. I think acts are good when they produce good consequences.

And then of course I do research because of the other benefits listed in the original post above: I'm talking the same language as everybody else instead of pointlessly making up new terms, I'm avoiding making certain kinds of mistakes, and so on.

Thoughts?