"Because we can!"

...most people who do it are downright bad at it. That they might take more time and care to be good at it without the perpetual axe of publish-publish-publish and grants funding hanging over their heads is another issue all together.

This is what Arab nations do for fun, apparently: build ever taller and more opulent structures. Woo.

Off-hand, I'd say you are a troll. At least, I hope you are. As a graduate student conducting research with humans, I can tell you quite honestly that every time I get back the ethics review of my latest proposal, I cringe inwardly at the revisions they require before granting ethics approval because it means more work from me. However, *each and every time* the result of applying those revisions is a better study design, and better study documentation. This is because you are forced to spell out your whole plan explicitly, rather than keeping it at the level of pseudocode, as it were. So while I used to regard the ethics review board as just a series of hoops to jump through, I've come to realize that they really are acting in my best interests too, and are helping me do better science. Ethics reviews HELP the scientific process unless you're some kind of quack.