Part of it comes from the fact that a lot of institutions require continuous publication by their faculty/research staff. If you don't publish because you're fo

Part of it comes from the fact that a lot of institutions require continuous publication by their faculty/research staff. If you don't publish because you're focusing on a long term paper, it can look bad on you during annual review. To combat this a fair number of people will publish many times on the same developing experiment (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). Don't forget grad students and dedicated undergrads. That adds a fair bit to your existing numbers.