What I get from pg's comment is how the research experience has become less fun across the board in the last few decades (I'm focusing on post-graduate research, but a case could be made for undergrad research too). There are many reasons why this has happened, but the major outcomes are that:

-Publication pressure makes it such that research progress has become significantly harder to gauge (e.g.: it's become uncommon for results to get reproduced) across many fields (statistics, machine learning, the health sciences, which I've done work in for over 7 years at a highly respected institution)

-Balkanization of research fields where problems become increasingly exotic and narrowly focused to the point of being contrived (all the better for publishing papers of course)

-Increased difficulties in securing research funding or employment (more temp jobs though);

-Arbitrary metrics often being used to judge one's work. Example: if you do theoretical work, reviewers can reject your paper for lack of "applications"; if you do applied work, they can reject for "lack of theoretical depth" (what either of these terms mean in 90% of cases is arbitraily defined by a single reviewer who just wanted to torpedo your work).

-In some fields, entire mafia groups have formed that rigidly control the review process for that field, which means good luck to you if your work competes with theirs and you're submitting a paper/applying for grants

-Lack of accountability as to how research dollars are spent (vis-a-vis the public's interests)

-...

BTW, I say the above as someone who did a lot of enjoyable open-ended research as a grad student.