Well "Actual research aims" is a rather loos term - i would consider "Enigma@home" and "Collatz Conjecture" as projects with no solid reseach aims. The one i trying to break a few crypto messages which will probably contribute nothing at all to history if we know there content. It will provide no additional knowleged about crypto.
Collatz i just itterating more and more integer Numbers and will find a sequence which is always reaching 1. It is very unlikely that if will lead to falsification of the collatz conjecture. It will not lead to a mathematical proove.
Both clearly have less scientific values than e.g. Rosetta or WCG even when they are sucessful.
This means one has to have clear rules what is an valid research aim. If you argue that Collatz and Enigma have a proper research aim one can accept nearly every project which has the aim to discover something with computer power.