For most things, feel free to reproduce patented parts for your own consumption, just don't give them away or try to sell them.

And where are these unlimited funds you speak of? I have a few crazy ideas of my own, that I'm willing to pursue on someone else's dime.

That's what academia is for. Perhaps we should ensure that academic research that is publicly funded doesn't end up with IP restrictions placed on it, and also expand the range of research academia engages in, to include more applied-research stuff and rediscovering/popularizing existing know-how that often is not publicly documented and might not even exist other than in tacit form. (This expanded scope for research would also help reduce waste due to academics overcrowding into a few über-popular fields of research, and largely duplicating efforts while trying to "scoop" one another.)

Of course, tacit know-how and first-to-market advantages will always exist to some extent. So, in a sense, we can't fully get rid of "IP"-like dynamics. But we can, and should, mitigate them.