True, and your overall point (that it is better than the alternative; i.e. viXra) stands. It's really one of those things where ymmv depending on the field- I just happened to notice a somewhat disheartening tendency for those sorts of horse trading practices to creep in, which is ultimately one of the major reasons why I left science.

I could be naive, but my impression was that there are almost too many degrees of freedom in the peer review process that could allow for this kind of chicanery, and that it would almost be preferable to have criteria for acceptance laid out in advance (i.e., exactly what steps, metrics, and citable articles were necessary) and use those the way an actuary would. In some ways I almost think that practices like preregistration serve as a better first-pass indicator of whether or not research is publishable.

Completely agreed. I think the system is ripe for an overhaul, and has many problematic aspects. We'll see how it goes, after all it doesn't look too bad with the open access revolution.

I personally would like more use of pre-registration (there is something about that on the front-page right now. But also I think deanonymzing peer review and publishing the reviews along with the papers could be very interesting. Obvious drawbacks as well of course but I think it has potentially massive upsides.