http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/three-myths-about-scientific-peer-review/

is a post that I find relevant.

Peer-Review is about low hanging branches, the stuff supported by enough evidence already that writing about it can be done easily by sourcing extensive support from prior work.

As for the damage of ignoring correct contrarians, there was a nobel prize in economics awarded for a paper on markets with asymmetric information which a reviewer rejected with a comment like "If this is correct then all of economics is wrong".

There is also the story of someone who failed to get a PhD for their work presenting it on multiple seperate occasions, the last of which Einstein was in the room and said it was correct (and it was).