[rscho]

Habit is not the problem. Once you get tenure, a good part of your job is to ensure that the younger generation in your lab/uni publishes well, i.e encourage them to pursue the next low-hanging fruit... So no, you do not in fact have more freedom.

[CrazyStat]

That's a fair point. I jumped ship before I got that far, obviously. From my perspective as a student it looked a lot like habit on the part of the senior/tenured people in the department, but I should not have been so quick to assert that.