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I rarely receive useful, actionable advice during the formal annual review. Critical feedback, especially, is lacking (the past two years, I've gotten "exceeds expectations" with no identified areas for improvement—really!?). The best feedback has come from colleagues, in the moment.

You are lucky. I have never had a really useful review. We also do 360s but you never get the real comments but only a compiled version which then is also not very useful.

I'd agree with this, I've had good experiences and downright painful ones with performance reviews. I've always found the process outcomes are heavily influenced by the relationship with my manager. I feel like you need a certain comfort level discussing with them or it tends to fall into that "Waste of Time" the author is referencing.