Should perfect and progressive tenses be avoided in research papers?

Writing a research paper, I came across a remark from one of the reviewers:

"Keep it simple" […] try to stay with present simple and past simple tense.

This would discourage the use of perfect / progressive tenses.

Now, I'm not a native speaker—and neither is the reviewer—but I'm sure there are valid uses for the present perfect tense. For example:

Research has shown that […]

This effect has often been cited as […]

The authors of […] have published a database […]

This, specifically, would imply that whatever research has shown is still valid today, whereas using a past tense here would mean that the research isn't accepted at the time of writing.

Regarding that reviewer comment:

• Why should these tenses be avoided in the first place? I wouldn't say that the "keep it simple" rule literally refers to the "simple" tenses. Or does it?


• Is that a general rule or are the examples I've mentioned valid uses of the perfect tense?