I think it's telling that "Researchers cost more than any other aspect of research" seems to involve primarily math as inputs and outputs. Like I said the obvious outlier is theoretical physics because that tends to involve significant resources both to explore (supercomputers) and verify (colliders, telescopes, interferometers, etc). Most people involved in research in any number of fields do not find that their collective salaries are the majority of the cost required; math is an outlier in many cases.