The issue for me is that there are three goals to review. In my view, they are being confounded in this new system.
A communication to the editor to help them make the decision whether to put the paper in their journal or not. (Remember, this is the editor's choice, not the reviewer's. I have lots of examples of mismatches if anyone thinks otherwise - in both directions.)*
Certainly, one can argue that we shouldn't be using editor-limited journals for scientific discourse. That's a different discussion.
Helpful guidance to an author to make the paper better.**
**Yes, I admit, I am an artist and thus a perfectionist when I produce public products - I do not put out partial products. This means that I am not about to say "I have a vague memory of X" without going to the extensive effort of checking that my memory of X is right and finding the proof (which could be a lot of work). But I am very happy to say to the author "Check X" and to the editor "If X is wrong, don't worry about it.". My reviews are not public products.
Commentary for the public so that people can see the concerns that need to be considered when appreciating the paper.
I feel very strongly that 1 and 2 should be private, but 3 should be public. 1 and 2 are the purpose of review. 3 is the purpose of commentary. They are not the same.
PS. The reason for my initial post was because it turns out that a journal I agreed to review for does not have any mechanism to communicate to the editor separately. They also make the full reviews public (if the paper author wants, which seems unfair - it should at least be at the decision of both author of the paper and author of the review).
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