Bitte Ein Bit (cool name)
Good post, and I would only add one thing. You can bring copies of your decorations and orders to get your records updated, but you can't do a damn thing if an OPR or training record is not in your master records (the ones AFPC holds, and the ones the promotion boards see). For that you have to work through your local MPF (if you are lucky to have one, and the one on Lackland is going away in a few months). Anyone within a year of a board should make the trek to the Alamo city to check their master records, on average I think I was missing 2-3 decorations everytime I checked. And with the boards being someone competitive with everyone deploying all of the time and everyone using the SH OPR/PRF bullet lists I posted earlier, all it takes is a missing MSM or ticket to cause a passover.
My earlier post assumed these guys checked their records in advance. You can request a hardcopy of your records from AFPC, but it takes a month or two to arrive.
Cheers! M2