I think my point was that individual performance does not matter. It doesn't matter if someone is competent or a grifter. It doesn't matter if someone achieves undeserved success. The academia is not here to produce short-term value. You don't need measurements that supposedly correlate with it. Measurements encourage gaming them, and gameable systems attract more grifters.
What matters is a culture of honesty. If a part of the academia has it, it probably produces long-term value. Unfortunately a culture is a nebulous idea. You can't measure it, and you can't really evaluate it from the outside. You may see it after the fact, if some people produced good science, because they lived in a culture that encouraged it.
Professional reputation is a signal for insiders. It can be used as a proxy for determining if someone is worth working with and if they are a good cultural fit. It's less useful for administrators, but they are not the ones doing science.
What matters is a culture of honesty. If a part of the academia has it, it probably produces long-term value. Unfortunately a culture is a nebulous idea. You can't measure it, and you can't really evaluate it from the outside. You may see it after the fact, if some people produced good science, because they lived in a culture that encouraged it.
Professional reputation is a signal for insiders. It can be used as a proxy for determining if someone is worth working with and if they are a good cultural fit. It's less useful for administrators, but they are not the ones doing science.