I think it's wrong to defend the current state. Even journals like Nature are game-able to a large degree. You can publish quite mediocre science in them if you

I think it's wrong to defend the current state. Even journals like Nature are game-able to a large degree. You can publish quite mediocre science in them if you socialize with the right editors at the right times. High impact journals are too much of a social club to be trustable, and social actions take too much energy from scientists. eLife is the only high profile journal that experiments with the process. Their experiments may be in vain, because they still need to come up with an alternative measure that funding agencies will use to distribute grants. You can't replace peer gatekeeping with nothing, there has to be something else. That said, the "publish then review" model is great, it is a straightforward mechanism that has worked on the internet for decades. We have AI that can weed out the obvious garbage , and the open review process can enhance papers greatly.