That's not necessarily true. When managers are doing a good job of regularly communicating with an employee and having critical conversations in regular 1:1s, nothing in a performance review should come as a surprise. If you've ever been surprised in a performance review, your manager failed in their responsibility--and you probably also failed yourself in that you didn't push for regular conversations.

Sure, those disagreements still happen. But, when things are transparent, there's very little risk of a "system breakdown" and a very high chance that a dissatisfied employee (who doesn't seem to be performing well in our scenario) will leave to make room for someone with more potential.

Edit: I just noticed the GP was jedberg; we both spent enough time at Netflix to see what each of us is describing work well in practice. :)

If scheduled infrequent conversations about that can adjust those expectations, wouldn't consistent frequent conversation adjust them sooner/easier?

In perfect world I'd have a mind-reading powered live dashboard I could check that shows a graph of anonymized averages of my perceived performance across broad categories (teams, peers vs subordinates vs leadership, etc.) and a single point for my direct report.

Getting feedback each year when there's no surprises feels like a formality and waste of time. In the rare case that there are any surprises it's disappointing and I get to make adjustments months late, having been left in the dark.