In grad school, we were specifically told not to get too many A's and to focus on publications. If some industrious type got mostly (or all) A's the next question from their committee was: Why aren't you working on publishing?
C's though were failing. Still, you had to try really hard to fail. The B's were inflated.
The difference is probably domains - a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience doesn't prepare you for much else than doing science. There, judgment for a tenure-track job begins and ends with publications. And no one will want to see grades and no CV ever includes them.
Computer Science is no different in terms of criteria for a tenure-track position. Well, publications is only half of it, grant money is the other half, but I imagine that's true for your field as well.
The CS departments I've been a part of don't expect students to publish much - if anything - until after most of their course work is done. That's usually about two years.
C's though were failing. Still, you had to try really hard to fail. The B's were inflated.
The difference is probably domains - a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience doesn't prepare you for much else than doing science. There, judgment for a tenure-track job begins and ends with publications. And no one will want to see grades and no CV ever includes them.