Yeah, the surveys were funny . . . had a couple pages of fill in the bubble about conditions, then you had like a page and a half at the end for comments. It was done while a lot of my battalion was in Iraq for the 2nd time, so the guys filling it out were either newbies who came in as they were training up, broke (non-deployable) folks, or people command did not want to deploy. So I was sitting at the table with my buddies who went to Iraq last time, mob'd with me in '03 too, and a new guy who was sharp (made E6 a couple years ago and done his own trips to Iraq and Afghanistan) . . . all the new guys had blank comment sections. Guys who had been in were laughing as they crammed in every incident- like my friend put his story about not going to the school to promote but could sign a waiver to go to Iraq. I know I threw on the bit where SMaj V chewed guys out who still had the old camo covers for the old kevlar, because it was not 'uniform' with the guys who got back from Iraq. Never mind it was what supply issued (and therefore NOT the guys responsibility) . . . and that he did not care they did not have the helmets offering the same protection and comfort. Screw having the gear standardized, he was pissed his battalion formation out in the boonies of a training area did not look uniform.
I want to say it was some touchy feely question about life in the service and what happens to make you not want to re-enlist. I know one of mine was 'being given the duties of E5 so the unit passes ARTEP w/o promotion.' But yeah, I know private industry does the same thing . . . had one job where they had 5 evaluating criteria, you would get rated and could comment back. I would max everything but 1 criteria, and in the response field would provide a statistical analysis about why that criteria was flawed . . . basically it relied on the sale price of something rather than the conversion rate and while they looked a daily average value, during that day that value's average would change because of local laws- to the tune of a 60% decrease in average value. I worked nights, which meant even if I outperformed my coworkers in conversion from the morning I could never match the value b/c of dealing with different state laws.
ANYWAY . . . back to the OP . . . reasonable IMO for armor or infantry. NOT for mechs . . . because mechs are the prestige branch and are commonly the choice of nobility then you get other things besides career track and performance affecting promotion. I honestly think you will get the more extremes of stories . . . frex, a mostly incompetent CO who KNOWS he/she needs help for admin/tactical command/etc and so hinders a very effective XO from being promoted away- because then how would their unit look? what happens to their reputation if they did not have someone to replace that XO? Think Shawshank Redemption, where the CO blocks the promotions (or freedom) of the XO to keep their 'tool' in place.
Or a officer makes a enemy . . . and finds not only can they not get promoted, they also cannot transfer to another regiment.
Or command has decided someone will NEVER be promoted. When I joined my command, there was a guy who was a E4 . . . prior service active duty for a handful or years (not sure how many). When I got out? He was still a E4 ten years later. AFAIK he always passed his PT test (middling results) and passed his rifle qual . . . until it changed in '04 or '05 his biggest problem was they would never give him a slot to go to the E5 school. IIRC he was also positioned in the TO&E in a E3 slot, not a E5 slot (I sat in one as a E4 for several years), the whole time. After PLDC was no longer a requirement for promotion they STILL prevented him from getting promoted until about the end of 2008, when there was a organizational shuffle for sending most of the battalion to Iraq the second time. He got promoted in December because it slipped through the system . . . and then decided to drive off without paying (what I heard) at the base gas station in January. Demoted back down to E4 . . . he spent like something over 10 years as a E4 b/c the command structure for the BN actively kept him from getting promoted. When I was separated, he was still in the ranks as E4 . . . and never to be promoted again.
Honestly, think of the job you had with the most political maneuvering and expect to see the dynamics in play among mechwarrior ranks.
