What is the target of the research work from your point of view? As for me, the most frequent question I have been asking myself before is that "what is the stuff I am interested in and would that turn out to be some significant contribution?" However, I realize that this is not a target but more a sort of motivation.

There might be two ways to explain the target I guess, one is simply and straight - Can the solution to the problem be generalized and applied to industry?; the other one would be more substantial and complicated, - What is/are the most important problem(s) in the domain? Essentially, the first way needs to well define the "problem" itself as well, which in turn more or less is reflected from those prime ones.In summary, is the target of the research is to try to locate and resolve the most important problems? If it is, what do you think are the most important ones in your domain?

This does seem to be over, since the problems will always change (maybe not as quick as everyday :-)), with a keen eye on the new trend. Thus from now on, it seems all logic works out - there is a defined, 'right' way to try to do good research:

Great research = (
Good background (to be able to locate(distill) or understand new problems)
+ Sensitivity (to the change)
+ Reactivity (the speed to be able to leading not tracing)
+ Distributability (Unfortunately, I realize that good research work does not sell it self.)
)
* Health (The reason to "times" health is that without health, all going to be zero.)
However, this is pretty much like a kitten tracing its own tail, the only difference is that the kitten is growing - the tail is always there, so is the problem. Is there really another way to do the work, another more important and primary way? Or, just the unattainable human desire to try to solve all the possibilities in one shot?