When should we use publication list for peer evaluation? This is a second attempt to ask about peer evaluation, after a pretty unsuccessful one which was probably much too broad. Let me start again, with a more precise subquestion.
The point is commonly made that one should not judge one's peer by looking at the impact factor of journals where her papers are published, as IF is a very poor indicator of the citation rate of individual articles, and certainly even poorer at asserting the intrinsic merit of individual articles. Some go further and consider that one should not judge one's peer by looking at the prestige of journals her papers are published in (e.g. because more selective journals tend to publish less reliable science). Last, the sheer number of publications is obviously no more useful to judge one's peer than the sheer number of books written is useful to judge a writer's merit. So, following these principles, one is lead not to use publication lists in peer evaluation.
However, publication list is most certainly the main component of a record in many, if not most, evaluation.
I have several questions on this paradox, to which I have personal answers which are partial and non definitive.

Q0 What are the actual practices you witness about the use of publication lists in peer evaluation?
Q1 Are there circumstances where using IF, journal prestige or other aspect of publication list leads to a better evaluation than not?
Q2 What other proxy if any can be used for evaluation that are expected to be done rather quickly (e.g. extracting a short list from dozens to hundreds of applicants for a tenured position, attributing small fundings), and what are their pros and cons?
Q3 What criteria can be used for evaluation that are expected to be done more thoroughly (e.g. hiring for a tenured position once a short list has been established), and what are their pros and cons?
Q0. Short answer, all kinds; from trying to dig into all details you mention in your backgroudn text to simply looking at the number. My experience says that evaluations often have lofty aspirations but when it comes down to actually performing the evaluation, a time crunch or other circumstances makes evaluations boil down to simple statistical measures.

Q2. The short answer here is, we do not know. In order to say that one approach yields better results than any other we need some form of comparable materials. I have not seen such comparisons made (which of course does not mean they do not exist).

Bibliometricians work with more advanced tools to try to work out comparable numbers. Having been through a few such processes, for organisations not persons, I can say that the results often indicate whether the object is good, average or perhaps poor and not much more; very relative terms. In my experienced studies the litterature is dealt with after having been subjected to, for example, field normalization since different fields have very different publication strategies. This i sone reason why a straight IF or h-index has limited value; it is important to know with what one is compared.

Q2. What immediately comes to mind is funding. If one is looking for a person that will contribute to a department through their activity, looking at their publications may not reveal the whole. Ability to attract funding may be equally important. It is obvious that the two may be well correlated in many cases and really poorly in others so even this would not be straight forward. Again, one has to look at the norms for the particular field to see how these can be used.

Q3. Thhis goes back to my answer under Q2 to some extent. I think, however, that in order to successsfully select a person for a tenure track, one has to be very clear of what one expects from such a person. Looking at publication rate is one thing but let's say that person locks themselves into a room and is never seen except whena new paper is published. Is that what the department really was looking for?

Appointing (good) people (contributors) is a difficult task and I very much doubt that using simple tools is the best way. Surely some tools such as IF end the like can be used to narrow down a larger group but the smaller the group from which to select, the more obtuse such tools become. I believe multiproinged approachs where the search criteria are clearly identified from the beginning and followed up by an assortment of means is the way to go. This usually involves interviews etc. to figure out how a person can and will integrate and contribute to the work environment.

So the short of it is that you get what you deserve if you use simple tools and underestimate the effort that is needed in the recruitment process.

This answer is very relative, I know, but I am convinced that hiring people is so much more involved than what simple statistics can resolve.