Determining the status quo

The following are some verbatim UX study goals that we have heard for determining the usability status quo: 

• "Because we have never done it before."
• "We suspect there are usability issues."
• "The flow is horrible, and we believe we are losing users at this step."
• "The intention is to completely redesign the app and website. We need an overview of where we are currently, as a benchmark to measure against later."
• "Ranking of the current functions."

All of these are valid goals, and we heartily support the endeavor to determine a baseline against which future versions can be measured.