I've thought about the idea of allowing people to separately publish data and analysis. Right now, data are only published if the analysis shows something interesting.

Improving the quality of measurements and data could be a rewarding pursuit, and could encourage the development of better experimental technique. And a good data set, even if it doesn't lead to an immediate result, might be useful in the future when combined with data that looks at a problem from another angle.

Granted, this is a little bit self serving: I opted out of an academic career, partially because I had no good research ideas. But I love creating experiments and generating data! Fortunately I found a niche at a company that makes measurement equipment. I deal with the quality of data, and the problem of replication, all day every day.