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I thought a long time about whether to do economics or a computer science PhD, eventually deciding on CS / machine learning. The usefulness of both is very appealing, and economics is full of interesting problems, a wonderful analytic method to approach thinking about society, and fascinating ideas and techniques you don't see much of in CS or statistics. The smartest economists are really smart and great at just thinking about the world.

But economics is also saddled with crazy non-empirical theories they force everyone to learn in the first two years, and an anemic journal-centric research culture that requires years to get an article published. I mean, from the OP:

And after you pass the prelims, there is little risk of not finishing a dissertation; unlike in most fields, you do not have to publish to graduate.

That is insane. Talk about tyranny of low expectations.

I wonder if their centrally-planned job market hurts academic productivity. It lessens the risk to spending years with mediocre research -- everyone gets a job eventually.