[dimatura]

Yeah, that's a good point. I was thinking in the US context, but I also have some experience for the academic evaluation process in Chile, and there were similar issues to what you were describing. The "bean counting" part of it was an issue for academics in CS, because the rules were the same across departments, even where it didn't really make sense. So for example CS profs got no credit (towards promotions) for publishing in conferences, even if they were highly selective ones like ICCV or N(eur)IPS.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Yes, the issue you mention is also typical in many countries with subpar systems. In Spain it used to be exactly the same. Lately, top conferences are getting recognition in some contexts, but there are still some calls where they don't count and it's better to have a crappy journal paper. I mostly publish in conferences but always have to make sure to have enough indexed journal papers per 6-year period to feed the system.