Pros and cons of grading

Here is a list with the most important aspects of grades, i.e. why we need them. It also shows that grades are more important for route climbers than for boulderers. 1. Selecting which routes to warm up on 2. Selecting which routes to onsight 3. Selecting which routes to redpoint 4. Measuring progress 5. Measuring daily shape 6. Playing with friends 7. Comparing the best in the world 8. Selecting climber of the year etc The bad thing with grades is of course that you may be temptated to start choosing climbs based on the softness and not on the quality. Another negative aspect could be getting disappointed just because you could not do your normal grade, when in reality it may have been your anti-style. One could say that if you like slash grades you think in general that grades are more important. In many gyms, grading boulders is done with colours instead of grades and some boulderers have actually said that we could skip the +'s outdoors as boulder grades are just very personal. What do you think?