I never had this impression. For me reading papers is way more fun and easier than developing a new solution in code and painstakingly work over all the bugs until they are gone, or worse, find bugs that you don't have solutions for. Or finding that it is too slow for your target machines.

Creating something new is so much work.

Like skying it could be fun when you are not a professional and you do it on your terms, but once you are a professional it is something different.