[BlackFly]

Many times the works cited occlude (as opposed to illuminate) relevant research and the context of the paper. For example, if you read a paper and find details lacking, will reading the works cited help you understand the paper or just waste your time? Many times you won't have an institute license for the journal, so what now? Request interlibrary access, piracy, call a colleague at another institute, assume the arxiv preprint is equal to the published version cited if available, give up? If you cite too broadly, the value of the citations just go down for the reader, both for an expert who is probably already aware of the other research and for the novice who doesn't have years to read the entire paper trail.

This of course comes up during the peer review process as well. The referee informs you of a paper that is tangentially relevant, but you couldn't find that during your literature search because it is paywalled. How relevant was it actually to the work you performed or to people reading your paper if it is not readily possible for you (and possibly your readers) to access the paper?

Citations in academia are often times more the currency of the trade than actual scholarship. There is a reason review articles exist, not every paper needs to be a review article in its own right.