Original research is much riskier than a job at your typical public company. Or, it should be. "Publish or perish" encourages breaking research into "minimal publishable units" which produces gobs of churn for everybody involved.

I've known a few professors that publish paper after paper with similar results and similar methods. I suspect each of having a much deeper theorem, either under their hat, or (more generously) at the tip of their tongue. If they'd take a bit of a break from the churn and focus on the deeper theorem, their actual impact on the field would be significantly more value. We'd all get to read, write, or review, a small handful of papers instead of dozens.