"peer review would encourage less hand wavy language and more precise claims"
In theory, yes. Lets not pretend actual peer review would do this.
In theory, yes. Lets not pretend actual peer review would do this.
Sometimes we get good reviewers, who ask questions and make comments which improve the quality of a paper, but I don't really expect it in the conference track. It's much more common to get good reviewers in smaller journals, in domains where the reviewers are experts and care about the subject matter. OTOH, the turnaround for publication in these journals can take a long time.
Meanwhile, some of the best and most important observations in machine learning never went through the conference circuit, simply because the scientific paper often isn't the best venue for broad observation... The OG paper on linear probes comes to mind. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1610.01644
The linear probe paper is still written in a format where it could reasonably be submitted, and indeed it was submitted to an ICLR workshop.