I think you are complicating something that is simple for logistical reasons. You can make the same kind of argument for any kind of game action -- we can't do it except at events. Research is actually less weird than not being able to craft items, or maintain them, or hunt, or whatever.

For a rationale for all of this, I think it also easier to rationalize variance in time it takes to do research than other things. When you're researching, there are presumably other things that interrupt you: fighting, healing, crafting, talking to people, doing day to day life stuff. And maybe some research takes more hours of effort to find something useful than others. Maybe it really did take you several months to find out useful info on X; personally, I'm glad Chris doesn't say, when there are only a couple weeks between sessions, 'sorry, you haven't had enough time to do more than 2 points of research!' That would also be lame, and not allow people to use their purchased skills. Logistics are done on a per-event basis, and we can rationalize the difference in time however we want. No game skills are ever going to be a perfect simulation of reality, esp. with only a handful of events a year.

I'm personally not a fan of having, in effect, an extra game going on monthly outside events which benefits people who play it, but that's because my time as a player is limited, even if my time IG is not.

-Kendra

Um..don't like faking the time..a month is a month. 6 months is 6 months. My character is a farmer and goes by the actual time. As far as research goes..you can study extra extra hard between month events to find out what you need to know and that would explain why you were able to get results as soon as a month. Or be too busy to put in as much time as you should for research for 3 or 6 month events. If you need to rationalize it IG..that is kinda what I do.