About promotions in general, and the promotion process, here are my personal thoughts, and they may not be entirely consistent with things I’ve said about the ranks earlier.
If we were talking about a real life naval career, of course I’d want to progress as much and as fast as possible, retire as an Admiral with a good pension, and bore young family members with stories of glorious battles. But it’s not. It’s a game. I have found, in and from online games, that I am not one of those players who wants to race through the levels as fast as possible to get to the best loot and the biggest monsters, I actually want to take my time at the lower levels and explore lots of the game world, its sub-quests, etc. So, in the TSN, I actually want to enjoy the RP, become technically competent at my station first, and then all the other stations, and then advance to command when I can do so without killing our crew.
I don’t really mind how long I stay a Lieutenant. I don’t really care if people who joined after me get promoted ahead of me. I might RP resentment, just for fun, but I would try to make it clear that it was in game, not real. And actually, since Adele joined the TSN for reasons that have nothing to do with career advancement, I think she would only resent someone being promoted if she had good reason to believe they were incompetent and/or a danger to the fleet. And you can see from van Leigh’s explanation of the promotion process that it’s set up precisely so that such a promotion would be unlikely.
Ribbons and medals are fun, but they’re not essential. They’re little extra trimmings. If they’re going to become a chore for somebody to keep track of, then we should find a way to make that job easier, or we can just accept that they may be handed out whenever is convenient. Commendations could work the same way, it’s nice to be recognised when you do something well. But, as I said, it’s not essential.
As a taiko player I admire immensely always used to say after he expressed his thoughts, “that’s my personal opinion, not general.”