Let me try a short reply: if the manager needs to see what somebody is doing, he hast to look at it. Not look KPIs and metrics.
KPI and easy metrics are for lazy bad managers.
I already mentioned above, direct managers don't have organisational visibility and can't decide among the hundreds who should be promoted and who shouldn't. The promotion request needs to go some central forum with objective criteria. This is not to say your manager can't represent you vigorously to this forum.