Yeah, I am hearing a lot of stories like that. Once upon a time I thought people who complained about the peer review process were just crackpots who didn't want to admit their work wasn't worthy of publication. But I'm realizing it's a lot more complicated, and what gets through can be pretty random sometimes and is very affected by sociology.

My adviser had a story about getting a paper of his rejected, after which somebody got one published through the same journal on the same subject, except that paper was totally wrong and said the opposite thing from what he said. It took many months, but eventually he convinced everyone, including the journal, that his conclusion was right and should have been published and that the second paper was wrong.

I seem to recall onhava having a bad-referee story as well.

I'm also learning that a lot of the time, the professors are too busy to do the peer review so they just pass it off to grad students to do. All of this may explain why my advisor has been boycotting journals for a long time.