I've been investigating statistics journals to submit my work to (specifically, an application paper). Many journals are specialized, others quite general.

However, I've noticed that top journals in the field (e.g., sub-journals of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS)) generally exhibit the above traits. In many cases, the impact factor is less than 2. In certain cases, the time from submission to publication is 1.5-2 years in duration. In the majority of cases, the acceptance rate is ~10% or lower. Some of the most celebrated contributions to statistics have been published in this way. This trend has been previously investigated by van Nierop (2009) for example (Title: Why do statistics journals have low impact factors?). Interestingly, the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA) currently enjoys an impact factor of 3.7, but long times between submission and publication. A similar trend exists for RSS Series B: Statistical Methodology.

Long wait times appear to explain why impact factors are so low, but the association is not causal.

For important work, these trends can be discouraging. A solution however exists in the form of preprints to avoid potentially being "scooped".

Could someone weigh in on this? CV has many seasoned statisticians who've likely served on journal editorial boards at some point in their career.

Reference

Van Nierop, E. (2009), Why do statistics journals have low impact factors?. Statistica Neerlandica, 63: 52-62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9574.2008.00408.x