Does anyone agree that the Navy should do away with how it currently advances?

Since I retired in 1990, I'm not familiar with the current system of promotion. In my time, we were given written exams based on our rate/rank after we met Time in Rate requirements. The exam was administered to all eligible persons in that rate Navy wide. If you passed the exam with a high enough score, your records were evaluated for performance evaluations, awards and sea/shore rotations. if too many others in the same situation scored higher on these evaluations, you were assigned a status of PNA (passed but not advanced, but if you scored well and chosen for advancement, depending on your command, you could put on the new rank (Frocked) but would not be paid until your date came up. (usually within 2-3 months.) There were some advantages to this but many disadvantages as well. For instance; some people do not do well taking tests while others find it a breeze. The sailor who was in an MOS that had few or no sea billets were at a distinct disadvantage. From one exam cycle to the next, the focus could change. For the HMs one cycle could be heavy on medical administration and very little on medicine and then the next cycle could be reversed. The point is that I don't think that there will ever be an advancement system that is going to satisfy everyone.

PO3 (Join to see) this is a sad reality in the Air Force, too. You can be a kickass operator in whatever job you do, but if you don't volunteer & have enough community service hours, you get passed up by Johnny Dipshit.
For what it's worth, the CMSAF is working hard to do away w/ this crap, so I hope MCPON can do the same for you guys!

First I'll ask what are you basing your opinion on? Is this the situation you are in compared to another Sailor who was advanced? If yes do, you know if he received a better eval than you, or what his past evals were? Do you know what his exam score was? Time in rate? The point I'm getting at is just because he was advanced and you weren't doesn't mean the command thinks he is a better Sailor.

Now, If you are working a lot more than the other Sailor is then this should be apparent when comparing your evals together, if not that is a leadership problem. If the command is placing more weight during rankings on community service, collateral duties, etc. than it does with how a Sailor is contributing to the mission(doing your job) then that is a command problem.

The eval I made Chief from(and the few before it) had three main bullets: How I was performing as a leader, How I was doing my job, How I was performing the 1 collateral duty I had. There was 1 line about my community service.

Point is, I don't think what you write about is Navy wide or is the type of Sailor Big Navy wants to promote. Even with the perfect eval system can be biased in favor of the Sailor the command perceives is better if that is the culture of the command. This is where things like the Chief Board can correct that. There's a lot you can get from an eval and can tell about a Sailor without ever meeting them. It's not all about the EP. Could all the ranks benefit from having a board like CPO and above do? Maybe but it might not be very practical.

Last thing I'll add is the Navy is making changes to its eval system for the first time in 20 years however, the details of the changes are still vague.