yup, the old CYA approach to product development (that stands for Cover Your Ass kids)… never been a big fan. I was having beers with one of the originators of “design thinking” and UX. After a few drinks he confided that he didn’t think any of it actually worked and at best it created somewhat incremental, “design by committee” results… I just can’t feel good about using a process that I believe in will yield better results just to drive up billable hours. That is one of the reasons I left one of the big firms I worked for. My impression was that many of the people that tended to stick there were a bit more academic and were fine with research for research’s sake, as long as they could charge a lot of money for it of course…
Like any tool, when used effectively, design research can be very helpful! When over used, used improperly, or used as a substitute for intuition and decisiveness it can go in circles… so if you go into design research, make sure your results are action oriented and move the process forward.