Gobbos are sorta designed for mad science technically. There's plenty of room and time for that to grow on him~
-Keep in mind how much Gate Teams tend to make. The first mission Foxhound ran before it was even called Foxhound was a complete and utter disaster, resulting in a Total Squad Wipe for the two other squads sent with them due to a complete lack of tactics mixed with Rocks Fall. Two Squaddie NPC's were left behind. Literally every survivor received nearly lethal wounds.
The squad hauled in if I recall 21C based on acquire data and samples alone.
The next mission was a resounding success. Which hauled in a Moderate Value Keep Artifact, later determined to be HL3 from an alternate plane of existence (50C) Around 10 or 15 different unique samples of the dirt, air, Imp Fog, Keep Stone (Varied between 1C and 5C each depending on potential uses and value), The Corpse of a Denizen, which led to the most effective armor plating Akras has, aka D001 Plates (30C), and as many Rusher and Imp corpses as we could tie to the APC. Also a Horror Knight's corpse. (Around 5C-10C total from Unique corpse samples.)
This trend continued and now Foxhound has 526C in the squad coffers that it doesn't know what to do with and all the members have between 30C and 60C in their personal funds.
The Gate Teams are paid for useful data. You get paid for data and samples, as well as accurate observations and you get a bonus for exceptional accomplishments. It doesn't really matter how you get the data and samples. Just so long as you acquire it. Tal making things for Vahlen to play with, if he actually gave any fucks about the money and logged it, would be netting him somewhere around 2C-3C per sample. More if he wrote down his observations in a concise manner. He frankly doesn't give much of a fuck about the money though. He's in it for the knowledge. Likewise. If I recall. Zander Has received payment for some of his alchemical solutions and they are in use by Akras. However he has not submitted recent ones for use. The only reason Foxhound isn't receiving money for the Heatsink stones is because nobody really Cares to cash in on them. However Foxhound still gets top of the line gear thrown at it regularly from the sheer value of those stones alone for tech development. Not even counting the other assorted accomplishments
You have plenty of room to research new shit. Long as Akras finds it neat. You can cash in on it. But frankly. Money is only a problem for the first two or so full missions. Hence Foxhound's general minimal fucks given about it.