Journal referees are about as far from "real world feedback" as you can get.
There's an interesting clash of incentives -- the grant-funding agencies optimize for stuff that is low-risk, but they claim to want highly-novel work, which also what gets published in better journals. So often what you must do is dress up incremental progress as revolutionary progress. It's soul-sucking.
There's an interesting clash of incentives -- the grant-funding agencies optimize for stuff that is low-risk, but they claim to want highly-novel work, which also what gets published in better journals. So often what you must do is dress up incremental progress as revolutionary progress. It's soul-sucking.