I have had more than one guy who gave me a recommendation explain that, after the first hand-scoring of the app, the app goes into the Tier 1/2/3 hoppers and isn't re-scored for either 9 or 12 months (apparently used to be 12, recently rolled back to 9?), regardless of how many additional emails to the hiring board are sent.
But, that's all secondhand info from guys on property.