[_jsmh]

Reputable quality bar isn't the right metric. Quality is a better metric. To the extent it can be estimated, impact is another. Neither of these require journals specifically.

A different way to look at this is to question what "old slop" actually means.

The reason not to publish in Nature is that it might take a long time to get everything right in the paper to publish, to the point it takes years to get it read. Publishing fewer results faster spreads the results faster.