I agree with all this, but it's not like the alternative actually solves these issues. Instead of a boring list sorted by seniority it becomes a boring list sor

I agree with all this, but it's not like the alternative actually solves these issues. Instead of a boring list sorted by seniority it becomes a boring list sorted by arbitrary internal politics. There isn't a company on earth that can accurately determine who the top performers are once we start talking about any mildly subjective role. Programming performance is especially difficult to quantify, mostly because the people doing the bean counting have no idea what programming really consists of.