Trust me, I have overhead as well. Meetings, traveling, presentations, and sometimes tasks that are necessary but not research. I consider the actual research "real work," and some weeks I can get more "real work" done than others. And certainly I have interests that I can't satisfy with the research I'm paid to do. But, there is so much interesting research to do that I am paid for, that it's just not a good use of my time to spend it on those other things. The way things are set up for me, the best time investment for interesting result return is going to be with my paid work.

That's me, though. My overall point was that surely there are developers out there who feel the same about their job, even if it's not labeled "research."