I think their role is very important. In major journals senior editors can reject papers without any review, at this great job they must have enough knowledge in that specific field of research, I think sometimes they have not and some great research works wasted by their job and unfortunately resulting misleading science. I mean If they want to do this job they have to be master in all fields and this is impossible!! I think senior editors role have to be just judging about formal points and not about conceptual advancement and all of the conceptual judgment have to be done by peer-reviewers. What do you think about this common problem in our scientific career?
Undoubtedly in some fields editors may seem to be 'directing science' when they decide whether or not to review a paper but usually they know enough about their field and have enough common sense to make sensible decisions. I trust most authors would prefer a polite refusal at the outset, for whatever reason, rather than enduring a lengthy review that yields a result a good editor is likely to be able to predict.
Some of what your are talking about is touched on in a recent book I co-authored: "Secrets of Economics Editors," MIT Press 2014. An older book by George B. Shepherd, "Rejected," 1994,Horton, AZ, also looked at some of the issues raised by your question. Briefly, older editors seems to be playing more of a "gate-keeping" role, and they are known to have rejected master pieces. At least two pieces that were Noble laureate materials in economics, one by Robert Lucas Jr, and another by George Akerloff faced such a fate. We do not seem to have a solution to this problem as yet. An up or down vote at the gate as Barry seems to suggest might be a pragmatic way to go. Life is so complex so that we do not expect a gate-keeper to have all the required knowledge you underscored for a good desk editor.
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