Mate, your concluding part that you said rely more on research, is it not same information published by the ICO or project team that you will see or research on? The whole scam thing has no straight way to know it. Sometimes there can also be luck and faith manifestation on the research done.
I think you misunderstood what the OP meant when he said "rely more on research". The quoted text below is probably what he wanted to address
what came to surprise me is some investors depends on this bar to decide whether they will invest or not
In any case, investors cannot immediately find out whether what is being projected in the website is true or not until the token sale is closed. I've witnessed one project before that lied about all those figures and the "reach softcap" is all for PR to attract gullible investors.