From an engineering stand point it cuts down on spam and false comments. If you have your name tied to a review chances are you are going to be more honest. Don't get me wrong anonymity is extremely important on the web, but you can't deny that it is abused. Look at the current state of YouTube. YouTube has some of the nastiest comments around. Instead of censoring, Google had an idea to tie your name to your comments. If you read comments by users using their name they aren't saying things like "Go f* yourself you fing fg. I f*ed your mother last night". The truth of the matter is everyone loves to attack Google for Google+, but the real threat to anonymity are companies that write and sponsor bills like SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA.
Yes, you are right. I can see how requiring your name when rating an android app or commenting on a YouTube video would drastically affect human rights activists in China. I am sorry if you are expecting a company whose business model revolves around selling user information to protect your anonymity, then you are going to have a bad time. A company like Google is going to comply to government request for information, that is why we have services, utilities, and tools that protect your anonymity online. Google is doing nothing wrong by asking for your name (they probably have it anyways). However, if they where blocking search results to prevent your anonymity, that is a different story altogether. In a case like China, it is the government that is doing the blocking and Google has no choice in the matter if they want to do business there.
Google is trying to consolidate all of their services under one account. Like it or not a Google+ is just public facing page for a Google account. In away it dose make sense and answers an age old internet problem. It requires users to be responsible for what they put online.