Lucky Andrew, you still can read your papers and be done with. Yes, of course you can learn about anything just by reading papers. I adore your time and diligence: actually checking out primary literature for a whole hip topic, understanding the changes, transitions and side-effects of it, it must be fun.
No, seriously, I mean every word of it. In my current field in industry I have the obvious pleasure of mostly having to read patents. And we all know that the BS-factor of papers is not at its ideal low; but with patents you need a very alert sanity check. Not only are patents not really written for the scientific mind, they are usually not even meant to be reproducible — but as obscure and broad as possible. Yes, of course I know the purpose of patents. But if you work in a field where most research is done by bigger industrial players, nothing is in the open. Nothing is clear. Patents are used as pawns in the big corporate game of chess, trying to obstruct the other player’s freedom to move/operate. Time consuming, energy wasting - yet essential.
But coming back to your post: there are projects and activities in industry to figure out what is hot in competing places — by analyzing not just the publications and patents on the market, but also the access of those publications. Smart cooperations with patent providers, data mining and other forms of industrial spying — erm information collection, trade and propagation — yield many useful new ideas and insights.
Probably the same if you could pay attention to grant applications. Way ahead of the hipness these things may be, but wait until everyone is doing “nano”, “bio” or “click chemistry”. Oh, sometimes I just love to see how some scientists get grant money just because they are the loudest in the crowd. Or re-naming their century old chemistry with new buzzwords. Actually, have you heard of the new trend to chemistry? Pico-structured matter… 
Again, back to your question: yes, reading papers will in some way be the best method of learning a new field. Quickly. If you cannot do the experiments yourself — as long as you can trust the data. As caveat I would not necessarily trust written explanations and hypotheses as much — if you don’t come to the same conclusion. Always check the primary data for errors, mistakes, try to draw your own conclusions before reading the paper. Try to find out if the data published is just the good stuff and lacks some controls, try to see if you would do the same experiments. Ask yourself what you would do different. And write the questions to the author (even if you never get an answer). Discuss the paper, if it seems relevant or whacko enough, with colleagues. This is where learning happens; not in just reading it. But you can always use some well-prepared reviews to get started.
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