[smcin]

> I haven't seen a manuscript that could not made a better paper through peer review.

Authors don't object to revision suggestions, they object to arbitrary/unfair rejections plus 4-year delays.

> The main drawback is the loss of time if a rejection means you may lose a whole year (only for conferences, and only if you are not willing to compromise by going to a "lower" conference after rejection by a top one).

No, it's much worse if you're a masters student who wants to publish and have that publication accepted within 12-18mths for your jobhunt; you'll necessarily compromise by skipping most journals and aiming for middle-tier conferences (high accept rate and fast turnaround), then falling back on journals only if you get rejected. This was why arxiv was created. (Some academic type here is inevitably going to retort "But conferences (not even those with official proceedings) aren't considered 'real' publications in my field", to which the counter-retort is "the job market doesn't care about that attitude".)