Data collection is more expensive, more time consuming, and usually more tedious than data analysis and paper writing. The people good at collection are not necessarily good at analysis and vice versa. More people enjoy analysis than collection. The results of the analysis are what is useful to the rest of society. Also, the people doing the analysis need to have very detailed input to its collection.

I was hoping stating it all together like that would make a solution more obvious, but I don't think it did. Having researchers commission data collection and every user having to pay would create barriers to entry we don't want.

You can't exactly decide what to reward. A lot of the important aspects of "reward" are implicit, non-legible, unstructured, informal. It's about how the community perceives you. About how many people walk up to you to chat with you at a conference. About how many requests you get to visit another lab. It's about intangible "status" and respect within the community. And it so happens that this informal respect is mostly given to people who make exciting discoveries. You can't top-down force the criteria for this. Data collection doesn't make you an exciting personality to invite to give a keynote speech or something. And those opportunities lead to more visibility, more collaborations, more papers, more grants, more recognition, more fame etc.