flaws of the altar call?

All my life I have known alter calls. They have always felt funny to me but yet we still have them. The question comes to my mind.. why? Scripture says:

8" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'[d]"

When Jesus was talking to the Pharisees rebuking them with scripture when his disciples didn't wash their hands.

Why are we so stuck on our traditions.. read here what my favorite reformed evangelist has to say:

21 Flaws of the “Altar Call”
by Pastor David Wooten

The invitation system is a modern evangelism innovation…

1. …without scriptural warrant.
2. …that is faulty and dangerous.
3. …that has created a new, unbiblical vocabulary (i.e., “repentance and faith” have been replaced with “decide for Christ,” “ask Jesus into your heart,” “Give your heart to Jesus,” “first-time decisions,” etc.)
4. …not practiced by the church until about 150 years ago.
• It was begun by Charles Finney who believed conversion was a psychological event and used this “anxious seat” to replace the purpose of baptism.
• It was popularized by Dwight L. Moody.
• It was standardized by Billy Graham.
5. …that has contributed to filling our churches with unregenerate church members.
6. …leading easily to abuse and manipulation of the method, especially towards children and teenagers.
7. …established upon psychological premises.
8. …mistakenly equated often with the new birth and/or conversion.
9. …involving a high rate of apostatizing (90+% according to the Billy Graham Evangelisitic Association).
10. …that is unnecessary for the Holy Spirit to do His regenerating, saving work.
11. …that is used to attempt to quantify soul-winning results.
12. …that is not the biblical mark of whether a church is committed to evangelism or not.
13. …where often the appeal to “come forward” supercedes or replaces any explanation of sin, repentance, or faith.
14. …that implies (or sometimes states explicitly) that those sinners who do not “come forward” are disobeying a divine command.
15. …climaxing with the recitation of a sinner’s prayer that is equated with conversion.
16. …that some respond to in their attempt through human effort to earn their standing before God.
17. …calling for the sinner’s instant performance rather than his careful contemplation of his sinfulness and the One whom he has offended.
18. …that adds a condition for salvation (”come forward”) that Christ never gave.
19. …that confuses the unregenerate man as to the specific obligations of his duty.
20. …that morphs the task of the evangelist to the duty of “drawing the net” by coaxing people to come down the aisle.
21. …seeking to give men relief from God’s conviction before He has made them fully humble and miserable over their sin.

I believe that the altar call has become the modern evangelical equivalent of Roman Catholicism’s pennance. Ask a Catholic how he knows he is right with God, and he will tell you that he did his pennance (x number of Hail Mary’s, etc.). Ask someone in a modern evangelical church how they know they are right with God, and he will likely tell you that he “came forward” during a public altar call. Both are woefully inadequate and unbiblical evidences of the new birth. (Source)