the whims and fancies of a sell side analyst

who is the sell side analyst
what motivates them to publish reports
why is there a target price, and how is the period determined
why do they want to tell about the stock to the general public, if they have really good pics then they should be just telling their clients and not the whole world

do i want to become a sell side analyst who has freedom to pick up the stocks that he likes or is he just working for another broker who wants a report (with beautiful graphs and just some information so that the clients would fall in love of the stock, and buy the stocks, and then he will earn the brokerage (brokerages are hardly money management businesses, and if they have PMS. it is just restricted to HNI' and have different analysts (often a buy side) or a private client group analysts but then didn't graham worked for a brokerage firm, but i feel he was given a leeway for selecting his own stocks and bonds, and then suggesting the clients to take the decision,

does he need to write so many reports (if the client really wanted to read those he would be doing his own investing and making his own calls, then why does he needs the analyst to help him out. best thing for him to give funds to Mutual funds and PMS's then...i still cant figure out why are so many reports of economics, GDP, Industry report that stretch to so many pages (mostly greater than 40-200 pages). As a retail investor do i time to look at these reports. For the brokerages research is always a cost center, mostly an advertising gimmick.

So my question is do we really need so lengthy reports (which the individual investor seldom reads) for making a right investment decisions? and going one step further do we really need a sell side analyst who prepares the reports and increases the brokerage cost for the individual investor. We really need Discount Brokers in India to escape these high costs then!!