Graduate school is not about passion and pushing frontiers. It is about training new researchers. It is it not a place that I would recommend to anyone who has real passion or brilliance in any field.
(I am genuinely sorry for whatever bad experience that's led to this bitterness, though.)
Edit: “research” in academia now revolves around grant writing and publishing. That is an anti-filter for individuals that do not want to play that game and would rather spend that time doing actual research.
Nothing wrong with it. However what is right about it? The world needs research, and that means researchers. However for every person in research the world needs a very large number of people in non research. The guy who works at the local sewer plant isn't doing research, but the world would fall apart if nobody did that job, while the world would still continue with nobody in research (I wouldn't want to live in either world, but the world of no more research is better than the world of no more sewer systems)