Should Reference Checks be Retired?

I was recently asked by an ex-colleague to be a reference for his next job. The recruiter called me and asked me the standard questions - would you hire him  again? give me his three strengths, etc. It seemed the recruiter was more interested in filling up all the fields in the form versus getting a better understanding of the candidate. I feel that reference check is a legacy recruiting tool that seems unnecessary for current times. With so much public information easily available for any candidate, it is straightforward for a recruiter to do their research using sites like social networks, Google search, publishing sites like Medium, etc. 

I believe that reference checks end up wasting the time of - the candidate, the people who agree to be references and the recruiting team. If recruiters would review all the historical data for reference checks, they can determine if reference checks have ever been the deciding factor in hiring or rejecting someone for a job. I would think if they were a deciding factor then that would be a very small percentage as people always pick references that can say positive things about them.  

They are also meaningless as a reference can make up stories to make the candidate look nice. Especially when they have to come up with answers to questions like - give me three development areas for this candidate, within a few seconds. If the purpose of reference checks is to weed out the bad candidates, they do the exactly opposite job of making a candidate look even better by the reference.

Instead of focusing on reference checks, it is better to focus on their experience, their responsibilities in the future role and how they interact with everyone. A lot can be learned in a few face-to-face meetings and is my recommended approach for recruiting. 

Are you in favor of reference checks? Do you know of anyone who got rejected because of a reference check? Please share in the comments section below.