The article and the comments herein remind me a conversation a few years ago with an ex RAF pilot who had done a few exchanges with the USAF. Among other things, pilot/personnel evaluations in the two organizations were worlds apart. In the RAF, at least during his time, they were what I would expect, more or less factual: Bloggins is good at X, needs to improve Y, excels at P, shouldn't do Q at all.

Meanwhile, in the USAF, anything that could even be perceived as negative was a career killer, so ratings started at mildly superlative and went up from there: Bloggins is an X top gun, is very good at Y, walks on water doing P, and is good with Q.

YMMV, of course, those are my recollections of beery convos with a former Tornado jockey.

As far as I know, all branches of the US military write up a "fitness report" for each officer once a year. "Above Average" is a certain career killer.

But somebody who was a dean at (I think) Virginia Tech wrote that the British "His work is quite sound, actually" could be higher praise than the American "His work sets the standard we all aspire to."