As a employee 1:1s give me a low barrier meeting to bring up topics which neither fit in regular working meetings, nor fit to "water cooler talk", nor warrant calling an extra meeting. Often there's not much, but it's a nice thing to have scheduled.
I've worked for managers that did and didn't do 1:1 meetings. At some places I've missed them - because the managers were out of touch with the team.
In other places where there were no 1:1 but a lot of 'hallway conversations' that seemed to replace them. So they had an 'finger on the pulse' of the team. That was pretty great - because of how informal it was and it worked.
I've also had great 1:1s though. So YMMV I guess, but it's hard to generalize. I think a lot depends on the company culture - some companies might benefit from them while others don't. There's no golden rule.
The issue I see with hallway conversations on their own is that some people don't convey much information in such a short informal setting. Other do but it can leave a blind spot for some individuals and for problems too large (or sensitive) to articulate in such a setting. Some people just aren't comfortable forcing a meeting with their boss to discuss a large or sensitive issue.
I agree, I'd reiterate my point about the company culture here though. And the team - but I think that figuring out what works for your team would be part of the managers' job.
Just to be clear, I've never been in the manager position here. Always the engineering position, so I can't really speak for a broad set of people.
In my experience, the importance of the 1:1 is correlated with the size of the organization. At a 1000+ person company with teammates spread across 10 time zones, the meeting is a must because I have no physical cues. This only works, now, because of the ubiquity of video conferencing.
So you make an effort to take time out of your day for informal, one on one conversations with members of your team? Over lunch, and directly in passing?
I think it's important to give feedback to employees that behave like you'd expect, too. Otherwise they might wonder if they are doing something wrong and change their behavior.
As a manager, I never felt the need to bother anyone with 1:1 meetings.
I think it is very easy to shoot yourself in the foot with feedback, this is a difficult art.
And I think the best strategy is to use feedback only to deal with outliers, ie exceptional or catastrophic achievements.