I think you're right, and your experiences of corporate vs academic research quality matches my own, more or less (in different fields). But this does lead to

I think you're right, and your experiences of corporate vs academic research quality matches my own, more or less (in different fields). But this does lead to the question of - why not just reduce academic funding, matched by corresponding cuts in corporation taxes? That would obviously not lead to a 1:1 transfer of research funding or anything even close to it, but if the replication crisis seems to suggest anything at all it's that there's too many scientists chasing too little real knowledge, with too few reality checks of the sort industrial labs require. If more funding was from industry, the quality of science might be higher.