It's awesome that you stick to the moral high road despite the consequences for your own work. I think that the problem may become more pronounced as the length of a researcher's career grows.

Peer review should also be blind. Too often a famous name can get papers published that would not be published otherwise.

Fully agree, although that only solves the problem of pushing through papers based on researcher merit (not the topic of rejecting papers on the basis of conflict with your own agenda)