I like to start with Github. If I see 2 checkouts in the last 6 month of the project I'm already out. This saved me a lot time in the past.

Doing a full researched as described by you is damn time consuming. I've already caught myself, scrolling over the whitepaper and not really reading it.

At the end of a research I'm asking myself the question:"Would I use this product in real life? Or does it just sound good on paper?"