Research is a tool. Memory is a tool. Memory, however, is not research. Remembering that something was a certain way and recreating it in the way that you remember is not using a research resource. It's fabrication. Your mind rarely, if ever, remembers every detail of everything stored in it. Our perception focuses events and memories into the importance of keeping the memory. Also, memory is not a resource that you can share. If you could, or once it is, then memory would/will be a valid research tool. Because nobody else can see what you are designing from. Until that time using memory to create design is equivocal to making it up. To fabricate the original. Not that there's anything wrong with that.