True - I mentioned the possibility for more funding but promotions is another thing. Part of the problem is that academic research is so specialized that it's o

True - I mentioned the possibility for more funding but promotions is another thing. Part of the problem is that academic research is so specialized that it's often difficult to assess the quality of the research articles themselves - that and the sheer number of academics pumping out papers now - this makes prestige indicators indispensible for other researchers and administrators to make quick judgements about the quality of their researchers and also communicate this percieved quality externally (for university ranking, attract donors, etc.). Anyway, for a close community of researchers on a specific topic, it's possible that they can make such agreement (to start over with another journal) - but in general it would be quite difficult to coordinate such a consensus in a larger community.