How "hard" or "annoying" is research?

[Samoht]

Depends on the class. Enchanter research is cake and some of the spells sell pretty well.

Wizard research is spotty because some of the low level runes are reused, so you may have to get friends/alts to help farm them. Pretty much all of the kite/AE spells are research only, so that makes it somewhat important, but after level 50, the only spell worthwhile is no drop when researched, but also drops from Vox, so it's a strange situation. Overall, it doesn't really matter for a wiz.

Mages and Necros need research for pets before level 50, but it's not really important otherwise.