So here's the idea: to have the general populus vote on who should be promoted and to what level. I would set up a poll for each applicant to the promotions forum, and people would vote on them. This would not work if the site was extremely big, but it fits our needs. The polls would be reply-disabled, so no comments would be allowed to be made. This way, no one will feel obliged to say how they voted.
Does that make sense? What do you think?