Why bother publishing in a journal?

Here is a piece by Anthony Salvagno on publishing and the peer-review system. What’s probably more interesting is the debate in the comments.  From the comments:

Peer-review is intended to evaluate the validity of the scientific methods used and the conclusions made, while providing feed-back to improve the manuscript. While I agree that the current journal-based system is inadequate in today’s research and internet based environment, I do not believe that the system can, at this time, be forgone completely.