These are all good points that I generally agree with. It is also the case, however, that experiences do vary. For example, my supervisor was hands off to the p

These are all good points that I generally agree with. It is also the case, however, that experiences do vary. For example, my supervisor was hands off to the point where I had to largely fend for myself. The quals and proposals were more things that got in the way of research rather than helped. This was the case so much that I ended up doing my proposals long after research was underway. The thesis and defence is useful in the same way that publications are. However, even there, if you get a bad committee with political or personal axes to grind, it can be very much not that helpful. My experiences with publications are the same. I've had good rejections that help me improve the work as well as several bad rejections (from conferences where you cannot respond) where the reviewer simply did not understand the research. In short, for some people a PhD is very hands on rather than overly formal.