Peer Reviews: Pros, Cons, and the Role of Anonymity

It was new to me but I have now learned in academia, papers published in journals are peer reviewed! Makes sense, this is scholarly work and as such should be critically reviewed by others within the same field. I presume this ensures several things:

1. You are legitimate and the work you are publishing in actually research you have done or compiled and not plagiarized.
2. The research is real and not a work of fantastical fiction.
3. The research you have done makes sense and you don't have critical errors within the research.
4. Since you probably don't have an editor and a team of publishers to make sure your writing conforms to the English language, they act as your final check.

The above list if probably a good list of pros for peer reviews but what about the cons? Are there any? Since I've only ever had one paper published and it was intended for a general audience, I've had zero experience with the peer review process but I imagine (that is correct, I have NOT researched this) potential cons of the peer review may include:

1. Your work may be so far ahead that it is not readily accepted. OK, that's probably far fetched....
2. You have been a jerk to others and even though the reviewers are supposed to be anonymous they still know this is your work and they just don't like you. It's probably best to avoid this situation!
3. ...and I'm at a loss for other potential cons....

So what about anonymity? This is probably to keep the honest people honest and to keep the process fair to all. If Dan submits an article and his buddies Janis, Scott and Brent are reviewing it, there may be just a bit of bias towards the paper in their reviews! For a work geared to a general audience, or for something intended for financial gain, anonymous reviews probably become much less important.

Now, who wants to anonymously review the quality of this blog and comment?