There’s really only one person that reads the fitrep thoroughly on a board, the briefer. He is going to read the reports going back a certain number of years, scan those further back, and then tell a story by marking up the PSR and other docs.FITREPs are the CO's signal to selection boards
When the record comes up, the board listens to his narrative while looking at the record and the markup overlaid, and they vote. It is over in seconds.
Block 41 is where the CO communicates with the briefer. The less of a mystery novel a report is, the better, and Block 41 is where the mystery gets removed. Highlighting something that is otherwise implicit in the data (my top LT report ever written) is not wasted words.
And that briefer will likely read other reports written by the same CO, so consistency is crucial.