“ALL administrators should publish at least one article a year.” What exactly do you mean by administrators? Deans, provosts, department chairs? Don Marquis is a professor emeritus of philosophy here at KU. His article, “Why Abortion is Immoral,” has thousands of citations. Wouldn’t you think people who are widely cited should be exempt from such a requirement? I would propose a more qualitative approach to getting rid of bad professors.
Regular publication, no matter how great something was 10-20 years ago, keeps you up on the recent scholarship, hence refines your arguments for or against.
There are actually students now and then who do know stuff who will raise things like, "What about what person x said?" So a small amount of ongoing research is a necessity.
Every time we have sought to "improve" our process with more "qualitative" measures, it ends up with unqualified people who have made friends having those friends put forth a blizzard of "other contributions," mostly in the vein of service or proposing "new classes" that no one signs up for. I favor the tried and true.