[sseagull]

It's easy to say that, but there's no way that can be reality. The amount of money to advance your field by an order of magnitude can be quite large.

Research is expensive and funding is hard to come by. Therefore, if you want to have a job next year, you end up doing 'safe' experiments that only incrementally advance your field.

In order to get funding for more radical ideas, you need to have a history of good results (and past funding). Which usually means you have to be a professor already.

(Also, many people who aren't professors, such as postdocs, cannot directly get funding from many funding agencies. They usually require you to be a professor already...)