So I sat down with my wing commander, and here are the bullet points:
My recent record is pretty good, but the total record didn't complete well enough to get a DP.
I had a lot of "#1/x" for instructor, evaluator, shop chief, but not a lot of #x/xx captains, majors, CGO, or FGO. Lesson learned... If your rater or SR is giving you a #1 that isn't CGO/FGO, push them for a CGO/FGO strat. He told me even a #10/40 majors would have been more helpful than my #2/23 shop chiefs.
My pool was very competitive. My base was not the only one with too few officers to get an outright DP, so I was competing with others who would have gotten a DP at their wings if there were more people within the wing.
Bottom line - if you rate on guys, don't give them a #1 of x in a category the board doesn't care about at the expense of a #x/xx (assuming it's a decent one) CGO/FGO or captain/major strat.
I sure wish someone had said that to me about two years ago.
On the bright side, he said boards have largely stopped punishing the lack of staff. We're starting to normalize people staying in the cockpit, because that is what Big Blue has asked of us.