[rguzman]

I agree that teaching should not be perceived as "overhead".

However, the best place to do research is within academia (large research universities), where there is a very complete and strong infrastructure to do research. Yes, the system is broken in many ways, but it is still the best.

People who really have a strong passion for teaching and not as much interest in research go teach at universities that specialize in teaching more than in research e.g. Reed College.

Last, at a sufficiently advanced level teaching and research are indistinguishable.