Agree with everything you’ve said.
For me, the bolded statement is very important. The coaches’ vote is the single greatest factor in playoff advancement. As you know, I spend my football seasons these days trying to show crews that by improving their mechanics, their rules knowledge, and their understanding of the philosophies that underlie good officiating, they will become better officials. The problem is there is virtually no connection between those things and the coaches’ vote. Speaking in general - there are always exceptions - coaches have no interest in officiating mechanics, don’t know the rules nearly as well as they think they do, and have never been educated in the philosophies that underlie good officiating. Don’t get me wrong. Coaches are major stakeholders, and should have some voice in the process. But frankly, they are ill-suited to evaluate officiating proficiency, and it is unfair to them to ask coaches to evaluate something they’ve never been trained in, and when they are nowhere near objective.
So, when a crew asks me whether their tournament status will improve if they do the work the way our Manual says they should, I have to be honest and answer “I don’t know.” And that’s because the annual process of ranking crews for tournament assignment and advancement purposes is fatally flawed, and is a cause of much disaffection in the officiating community. We all know crews that are so disgusted by the process that they don’t even apply for the tournament. We also know officials who have given up officiating, with frustration at the tournament process being a significant factor in their decision.