Whats your opinion on best use of research time?

If you endlessly reading and fascinated by the stock market you're actually doing a good job and most probably enjoy it. That's an excellent brew! Here's how Buffett and Munger usually do:
"Neither Warren nor I is smart enough to make the decisions with no time to think," Munger said. "We make actual decisions very rapidly, but that's because we've spent so much time preparing ourselves by quietly sitting and reading and thinking."
Playing second fiddle to 'Einstein'
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/20/business/berkshire.php

Probably best to read SEC filings

I think that the best use of an average investor's time is a well-diversified slew of index funds. Given that you don't want to do that, I suggest that you study a few companies very intimately. Get to know their business models, their financials, their management, products, etc. This is how you get an edge. Then, when the market inevitably acts stupid and offers it for sale at a low price, you can then pounce. If you're really ambitious, you can do like Buffet and Lampert. These guys read tons and tons of annual reports and filings to the point that they just know things about these companies by osmosis.

If you are looking to invest in an index you may be better served to investigate industry trends than the specifics of the individual companies within the etf.