thus, the pre-review batch test was a way to avoid wasting (human)
resources on an unacceptable patch.
You are confusing the review process with whether the patch "works".
To a large extent, those two issues are very different. A reviewer
will always presume the patch works and is looking a stylistic and
methodological issues. Even if the patch doesn't work in its present
form, if there are such issues, they will need to be fixed at such time
when the patch *does* work. So it would be relatively rare for a reviewer
to be wasting time commenting on a patch that has a technical problem.
