[majos]

The point of a PhD is to learn enough that you can produce research and then get better at producing research. Learning how to produce research is where an advisor and community of grad students and postdocs becomes important.

However, if you just want a better understanding of the fundamentals, you certainly don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) do a PhD.

Also, if you’re reading “dozens of papers each week”, maybe slow down? I wouldn’t pick up much more than abstract-level knowledge at that rate.