Hammer, nail, head!
Sadly, I fear, you are both right. Paxboy has experience from both sides of the Appraisal Table and has given us a remarkably clear outline of the way it works. I once had an immediate manager with whom I (uniquely in nearly 35 years) had a personality clash, plain and simple. I recognised early on that it was 'six of one and half dozen of the other' and just stayed away from him. I made it my business to stay off his radar and visit the office as little as possible - once or twice a year was my best.
He, on the other hand, was incapable of leaving me alone and in this respect he, I consider, was seriously at fault. As a manager he should have recognised there was a problem and requested that I be 'managed' by another branch manager. At the time perfectly possible. However, he did not and there was almost open, public war between us. The way I work hasn't changed over the years, but I found out many years after him, that he had submitted poor appraisal reports on me on several subsequent years, after one infamous appraisal where he took four hours to tell me I was 'a level four'. A level at which - according to the company process book - a could not work equally with my peer group. It was usually me that was sent to help my peers when they were in trouble.
I had to refuse to accept the assessment and demand to meet the UK Service manager - who defended his prote'ge' somewhat apologetically - and hammered out a 'deal' that would overcome the immediate problem - not the subsequent six years. So, Paxboy is perfectly correct in saying that even the structured, corporate system like that, can and will be abused.
However, there is no doubt that the hard working, conscientious majority - as well as the 'walk on water' highflying minority - are negatively effected by poor performing, incompetent minorities. Which brings us back to where we started with performance assessing a large body of transient staff such as Cabin Crew.
ROger.