No comment on the quality of many IEEE conferences :) I think most people active in a field know what the best venues are.
I certainly don't disagree that there is a lot of randomness to the review process. And frankly picking which papers are likely to be most influential in ten years time is super difficult (e.g. see how often best papers have minimal subsequent impact). Regarding the Ferguson document, I haven't served on a REF review panel, but I think if you can justify it as being influential/high quality through other means that should be acceptable?
OFC you are right - it would be fairly career limiting to try to talk it down I would think! But I am concerned that the REF should work by the reviewers actually looking at the material, rather than looking at where the material was published...
