> It reduced the bias in the system from ICs writing up their own packets, which disadvantaged poor writers and poor self-promoters less. It got employees thinking less about promotion, since there was less they could control or do.

I agree that this seems positive, but you lose some things with this sort of change as well. ICs often have knowledge of their own performance that their managers don't, even when you're having highly effective 1-on-1s. You definitely don't want engineers spending huge amounts of time and energy selling themselves, but you probably do want them to at least a little bit!