Whither SSRN?

At dinner the other night with some colleagues, the topic turned to the point and purpose of SSRN (and I suppose the discussion generalizes to encompass BEPress also).  I had been under the impression that SSRN was developed initially so that scholars could see "tomorrow's research today."  In other words, scholars (and the public) could access drafts of work well before  publication, along with past publications by a particular author.  And indeed, SSRN's homepage indicates that this is the point:

Each of SSRN's networks encourages the early distribution of research results by publishing submitted abstracts and by soliciting abstracts of top quality research papers around the world.

The "problem," as I see it, is that, at least in law, SSRN is being used as a way to generate more information relevant to the evaluation of a potential scholar (should we hire her, well, let's consider how many articles are up on SSRN, or how many downloads the person's scholarship gets, or, how good the article on SSRN is).  If SSRN is being used for evaluative purposes rather than constructive feedback purposes, then it seems likely that people will not post their "shitty first draft" up, but rather their penultimate draft, or potentially, just their final draft that was published.  Consequently, as a result of SSRN, I've heard people lament that they might get more citations, more conference invitations, and potentially more  nibbles from schools interested in hiring -- but almost no feedback from far-flung scholars (or even ones just sitting down the hall) on "real" works in progress.

This experience rings true to me. In my own case, I currently  have only final drafts up.  This seems a shame.  I have three massive projects underway, all of which, in theory, I would love to get intermittent feedback on if only the proper norm -- don't judge these, I'm still working out the wrinkles, and still writing various sections of the paper, please reserve judgment until publication -- operated.  But because SSRN is being used, based on my anecdotal experience, for the purpose of getting data on someone rather than for knowledge-building through collaboration, it seems necessary to build guerilla-SSRN models.  By that, I mean assembling informal networks of friends and colleagues in one's field to do a vetting of draft scholarship prior to submission of pieces to SSRN. 

And of course, it might be pink elephants all the way down--how many of you are reluctant to give your scholarship to anybody but your closest/smartest/most compassionate friends before you circulate a paper to your colleagues (whether senior or junior) in the school and elsewhere?

Maybe the evolution of this norm (if it's in fact a norm) is a good thing.  It does, after all, force people to be careful about what they circulate in their name; it also helps contribute valuable data to an appointments decision.  But I can't help but wonder if delicate egos and ambitions (including mine) are hindering the original mission of these research networks, and whether, net-net, it's a loss to the community of scholars.