For me it's not even so much the research angle, as the power-user-features angle. Via Google Labs you could enable features and interface customizations that for various reasons didn't make sense to put into the default product, especially in Gmail and Google Maps. Some were not at all researchy, just simple interface enhancements, like the "drop lat/lon marker" feature in Google Maps. I'll miss that flexibility if they don't replace it with some kind of advanced-options config.
Ah cool; it looks like that clarification was added in an update. I had assumed that those were part of the overall "Google Labs" project, but maybe that was just a (now-obsolete) branding strategy to tie together all the "labs" stuff.
