I did my PhD investigating evolutionary questions. For this purpose I used sequencing and compared my data with other sequences found in databases. The format for depositing sequence data was strictly standardized, so it was quite straight forward for me to compare my own results with data from other labs.
However, in electrophysiology each lab appears to invent their own way for stimulating neurons, for acquiring data and for analyzing data. This means that direct comparisons are difficult, and often it turns out to be easier to just repeat a published experiment than to use their findings. As more and more people are becoming frustrated with this issue, potential solutions are published (here is one interesting suggestion), but we really need a consensus for this to work as flawlessly as it does in sequencing.