True, but some evidence is harder to fake than others, especially when there are multiple independent items that corroborate some fact or another.

Granted, there are definitely things that aren't amenable to this, but it's not exactly hopeless, either.

No it's not hopeless, but when done right it becomes indistinguishable from true investigative and research work; wouldn't be nice if you could share the results of that extensive effort put into uncovering the truth so that others could benefit? Oh, wait...