All the strong academics I know publish often, and in the strongest journals. They never tell me that a paper they wrote was not really good, so they decided not to submit it. They fix the paper, make it better, and get it out. When people tell me that they did not publish a paper because they thought it not of high enough quality, or when I am told by someone that they have had lots of ideas, but they did not think it worth publishing them, I wonder what business they are in. Scholarship depends on the community's dealing with the work you produce, and what you don't publish is unlikely to enter the realm of scholarship. Telling me you have N working papers, but you did not push to publish them, tells me you are not part of the scholarly community. You don't know which parts of your work are likely to be most influential.

Of course, you want to publish in the most prestigious venue, with the greatest visibility.

Don't tell yourself stories about how there are people with real brains, and then there are the hacks who publish whatever they write. The people with real brains publish even more. More to the point, your reputation and your school's depends on your publications and their quality. Of course, you should be a good teacher, and do your service. But your major competitive job is to make your work part of the community's culture. Being smart and deep is nice, but being well published is better.

Yes, there are people who publish only gems, and they are wonderful. But most of us, all of us, are not so likely lay golden eggs.

By the way, lots of the published literature, even in the strong journals, is not very good. But at least people see if and can assess it. You are not above their judgment, even if they are not so bright.

If you have a bunch of papers sitting in a drawer or a working paper series, first get them all out and published. Then make claims about how the stuff doesn't count. Before that, your claim is unwarranted and seems like special pleading.