I think Stack Ranking can work in some situations, like mechanical (ie. non-heuristic) work, but for Engineers? I've never understood why they even considered that it would work.
It's not like Jack Welch's worst idea isn't a driver of politics and strategic[1] moves in the real world.
[1] as in, bad for the company but the most rational move for the employee, like attempting to make sure every person added to your team is worse than you.
Jack Welch-style rank-and-yank is cruel and wildly inappropriate for software developers (or any human workers, I'd argue). It encourages political blame-shifting/scapegoating games that distract from the actual work. Just having the practice is also an implicit acknowledgement that your hiring process blows.
Performance curves are just a demented and sadistic way to manage people. They're also the epitome of b-school cargo culting.
And what if they really are all doing great, on a given team? Then no sense in punishing someone just because you have to punish someone.
And if someone is underperforming? Their direct manager's job is to take care of it. If the manager isn't even doing their job of managing people, a grading curve isn't going to fix that.
Also, if it's only enforced at a higher level of hierarchy, then what happens is that it's the junior members of underperforming departments that get the shaft. They probably had the least to do with the team's underperformance, but they also have the least power and therefore the least ability to dodge blame. Shit rolls downhill.