The role of professors in experimental sciences has simply changed. The most successful ones manage multi-million dollar annual budgets, have connections with politicians and local billionaires. They almost never do research themselves, their success is measured by their management of big projects. I know of one professor that has ~100000 citations, oversaw the construction of two institutes during his tenure and has been involved in big european projects for over 30 years now.

It is a wholly different story in theoretical fields like theoretical physics or mathematics of course, where you basically need no money.