A few points in response to your arguments:

Firstly, I agree that grades have merit as a mechanism for many people. A grading system is useful if it helps us learn and incentivizes us to listen in class instead of surfing the web (or skipping class entirely). Additionally, I too benefit from looking at the course as a whole while studying for a final exam, which, without a grade, I would likely lack the motivation to do. In that sense, grades are beneficial. However, I don't think law school utilizes grades in this beneficial capacity. If law school is going to persist on grading us, I think we'd all benefit from receiving grades intermittently rather than just at the end. By getting feedback on midterms, papers, etc., I could correct my missteps and track my progress. I doubt I only speak for myself when I say that the current system leads me to cram all of my substantial learning into a stressful, nearly sleepless two-week period, vomit all of it onto my laptop screen, and subsequently forget it all. I actually tried to avoid this: I contacted two professors soon after winter break to schedule a time to go over my exams and see my mistakes, and both told me I had to wait until mid-March to discuss my exam with them. By that time, I had forgotten everything I'd written; there was no hope of progress. You are right-grades do have benefits-but the current system does not allow them to be fully realized.

On that note, I am a little confused about why you advocate the option to opt out as the removal of a major obstacle. You say that grades are an incentivizing mechanism, motivating us to learn. Therefore, by opting out, you are removing that motivation, perhaps the only thing that makes grades worthwhile. Furthermore, my point exactly is that through opting out, we won't avoid the obstacle of being subjected to others' judgment. Even if we opt out, we'll be subject to that so long as we care. And we can stop caring what others think while still receiving grades.

That brings me to my second, and more important, point. I agree with you that it's very difficult, even impossible, for the majority of us to completely ignore grades, to divorce ourselves completely from the reality of law school. Quite clearly, grades have been motivation to many of us throughout our lives-otherwise we wouldn't be here. It is an idealistic notion to think we can totally ignore the pervasive grading system. What I was trying to say is that we can ignore the "rat race" that accompanies it.

I said that employers and peers may disprove of us opting out; however, I did not mean to indicate that we should care. Quite the opposite, in fact. What I am trying to say is that it's an inescapable reality that we will be judged on our academic record. Opting out will not be a rabbit hole allowing us to get away from this truth. The only way to free ourselves from the confines of the system is to tell ourselves that others' judgment of us on these bases are meaningless.