The artifact "Research Data Archive" is described as adding 1000 units to a planet's research output using a footprint of 5. This seems too good to be true, as completely covering the planet in other research-based structures will produce less than 100 points TOTAL.

Am I misreading it's description, or should I go and build one on each of my 11 planets, boosting my research output from 318 per hour to 11,000 per hour?

It adds that amount to your storage cap not how much you make. It is called a store house for a reason. Really only worth picking up if you are producing more then you can hold in 24 hours. Which a few people do.

Got It. I didn't even know there was a cap on the research accumulation? I don't really see an indicator of that in the GUI (not that I'm doubting there is one).

Hover over your Research per hour and it will show your max.

The cap increases by a few hundred points every time you increase in rank. I'm level 132 and my cap is 19800. At 1389 research/hour, it takes me 15 hours (Rounded up) to fill to my cap. I wouldn't consider building one of these structures until it took me 7 hours or less to fill to my cap though.