Well for one they don't HAVE to reproduce every paper. They only have to reproduce protocols proposed for these papers, and mostly you can stick to the ones wit

Well for one they don't HAVE to reproduce every paper. They only have to reproduce protocols proposed for these papers, and mostly you can stick to the ones with obviously wide implications. If, for example, there was one group who tested all of the methods for manufacturing graphene for efficiency and repeatability, that would make work much easier for dozens if not hundreds of labs around the world. Not to mention it would open up the way for startups, who can rely on tested protocols, to begin industrial scale work with graphene. You can't predict which work would be important in general, yes, but when it comes to identifying important protocols in organic chemistry and biology, there is a lot more information on what is important and what is not. Most of the time, in o. chem, protocols are incremental improvements over previous protocols and it's very easy to figure out which of them are most often used.