The worst part of this in the biomedical field is the conferences. Thats because sometimes you get toddlers with an advanced degree and a chair position picking the conference presenters, who will unilaterally reject or accept people on the grounds of whether they like them or see them as a competitor, even within the same department, no regards to what the poster or talk might be. At least with journals you have the editor who can sometimes mediate a hotheaded reviewer dispute in a level headed manner.