Well, then I have to vehemently disagree with you. The bulk of interesting papers I read are not from MIT or Harvard, but from a quite diverse group of interest

Well, then I have to vehemently disagree with you. The bulk of interesting papers I read are not from MIT or Harvard, but from a quite diverse group of interesting universities and non-university research institutions, from Canada to France to Switzerland. There are a lot of places where real and important research is done. I would even say the opposite. I think a lot of papers from the top-institutions are quite boring and, i think, heavily profit from the name of the institution. There are quite a few countries with many strong universities, for example, the UK, where I regularly enouncter universities (I think) I have never heard of before. Right now, I have a paper open from the University of Strathclyde, I can't prononounce the name and it's definitly not MIT, but it's definitly research that matters.