If I'm going to have to justify what I'm doing all the time, I'd rather do that in industry, where people have deeper pockets and you're closer to the source of the money.
[1] The internal politics is actually easy to understand. It moves very slowly, and it's based entirely on getting a critical mass of influential people in the department to be on your side. It requires a lot of closed door chats to get things done. But no-one is ever actively looking to bury you as I have heard can happen in law/accounting.
Definitely. I'm entering my fourth year now, and in retrospect, it's completely unsurprising. But when I entered graduate school, I almost immediately realized that I had idealized the notion of academia. Probably because I was a newborn pup as far as academia was concerned and really wanted to believe bullshit didn't get in the way of quality publications. (And I don't even have any sour anonymous review experiences myself.)
But academia is just like everything else: most people seem motivated to publish to advance their career. Only a few good ones are out to publish something to help others. I really thought it'd be the other way around when I entered. Naive, I know.
I've actually gone through precisely the same realization, but it hasn't ruined the fun for me. Namely, I seem to be an observer while the messy politics are played by the faculty members.
I entered graduate school with the intention to become a professor, but am now leaning more toward taking my chances in industry. But I'm happy with my destination being unknown for the moment. :-)