Jouri
You seem to be painstakingly negative about every aspect of academia, be it the developing a PhD proposal (and indeed 'hot' is a word used by the ESRC about certain topics on its website), the life of the postdoc, or the life of a lecturer. Do you think you would find any other area of work more exciting? I don't think its helpful to try and sap every ounce of enthusiasm out of someone considering a PhD, simply because you personally don't enjoy research.