> Your suggestion would have fewer fresh eyes to look at the problem
Why? That paradigm doesn't change the influx of new students.
But the current system has a problem of training people for a job and then sending them to do something else. Even a professorship is a very different job than a graduate researcher or postdoc. Most professors do little research themselves these days, instead managing research. Don't you think that's a little odd, not to mention wasteful? We definitely should have managers, and managers with research backgrounds themselves, but why not let people continue honing their research skills?
> it’s brutally competitive for the individual scientists
It is. But this is also a social choice dictated by how much we as a country want to fund research.
But the current system has a problem of training people for a job and then sending them to do something else. Even a professorship is a very different job than a graduate researcher or postdoc. Most professors do little research themselves these days, instead managing research. Don't you think that's a little odd, not to mention wasteful? We definitely should have managers, and managers with research backgrounds themselves, but why not let people continue honing their research skills?
It is. But this is also a social choice dictated by how much we as a country want to fund research.