With respect to item #1 (huge time lag), it's worth mentioning that in some fields—I'm familiar with psychology, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering, but this likely applies to others as well—many if not most labs are in some form of contact during the course of the year, whether it takes the form of planned or serendipitous meetings at conferences, email conversations, second-hand talks through mutual collaborators and similarly-minded faculty, or other channels. In these fields, it's pretty unusual to be working in a total vacuum, where your only method of communication is through academic publications.