Ok, not nobody. I love research. You might. Your boss probably doesn't. Her boss almost certainly doesn't. Yes yes, this is only the case most of the time, not all of the time. But why is that?

Research is Expensive
It costs money to do any kind of research. Even if you're just looking things up on the internet, that time costs someone money. If you're actually doing research with research subjects you usually have to pay them. You usually have to buy materials to conduct your research, if you don't have them already. Some times you have to travel. Bottom line, it hurts the bottom line. (ok not really, but we're not there yet)

Research Takes Time
You have to design a study. Find people to participate. Run the study. Analyze all the data you collected. Make sense of all your analysis. Even a "quick little survey" isn't really that quick most of the time. And "time is money." (See above pun about the bottom line.)

Henry Ford Ruined Research
Or at least he did in the minds of people who are too busy to understand an often quoted Henry Ford snippet:

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. — Henry Ford

I've heard this "famous quote" more times in the last six months than any other, often to justify to me why we can't do research. First, I can't actually find the source of this quote. I haven't spent hours and hours searching, but an hour on Google, GoogleScholar, wikiQuotes and wikipedia have left me with no source for it. The point is, he may have never said it. He did not invent the automobile, he just was the first to mass produce it cheaply. But it doesn't matter, because he's getting credit for saying it. And because he's a great name in American business, it carries weight. The problem is, it misses the point entirely. 

There are no silver bullets, and Henry Ford probably knew this, even if you (or your boss) don't
This has been beaten to death I'm sure, but "asking people what they wanted" is simply asking the wrong question. Yes, if you ask someone directly "what can I make you?" they're going to define it in terms they already know. Like "faster horses." You're not looking for THE answer with research, your looking for clues to AN answer. 

Assuming the Ford quote is true, then yes had he asked people what they wanted they likely would have told him something about horses. They were the primary means of travel at the time. Followed by walking if you couldn't afford a horse. He also might have gotten lucky, if he'd asked enough people, and gotten a couple cars and an airplane. Those would have been the "crazy outliers." But, if he had asked them "What is it about travel now that you dislike the most?" he likely would have learned things like: horses have to rest every few hours while pulling a wagon, it's not easy to take care of a horse, it's expensive to take care of a horse, dogs and other animals can spook a horse and that's very dangerous, etc. He would have found problems to make solutions for. Problems that the mass production of the automobile would eventually solve. 

This is what the people who swear that research is a waste of time fail to see, because they expect it to be a silver bullet and it's not. It never is. It's more about finding out what the problems really are, if you're making your thing for the right people, or if your solution is correct but not defined in terms the right people understand. These are the qualities that make the great things you love. I guarantee it. You can't make something great on purpose without knowing the answers to these kinds of questions, and it's very expensive to try and stumble into greatness all the time. 

In the end...
The Ford quote is often used to defend the stance of the "lone genius" even if sometimes that "lone genius" is a team at a company. That's simply not the way to make great things. Awesome doesn't happen in a vacuum, or a silo or sitting at your desk with the blinders on for 18 hours. It happens when you ask the right people the right questions to figure out what that "awesome" is, before you start searching. Had Ford "asked people" (and I don't know if he or anyone else did for him) he may have found out that things like "with electric lights, people can more safely drive in the dark." And maybe he did. The point is, Model-T aside, the only way you can know if you're solving a problem is to ask the people you think have it. Not to ask them what the answer to your design problem is, because they won't know. But to ask them what their problem is, so you can design a solution to it. It's these well researched, well designed solutions that make the research effort pay for itself many times over. They're the solutions that become the next big thing, which is actually good for the bottom line (see, I got there). Those well researched solutions are the only kind that will consistently lead to a great experience for the user, even if Henry Ford supposedly said otherwise.