I'm not disputing the info you've gathered already, but there's more to it than the squadron talking about how tight their manning is at any given moment.
I flew at Sheppard for 9 years, good friends with a lot of the reservists there. A few years ago I was looking into switching to the reserves and one of the guys I had been flying with for years had recently pinned on O-6 and was working down at the reserve group at RND. To make a long story short, no matter what you hear at the squadron level, the reserve hiring process for all those AETC squadrons starts with the application at the group level. Yes you will eventually work with the squadron regarding what vacancy you might fill, but the group is where you gotta start. They have their own job application web page and everything
Yes I am sure the squadrons have a list of preferred applicants and there is probably a line of their buddies already working there who would merely have to change patches one day and keep doing the same job just with a different color nametag, because there's always a line and they always know who they'd prefer to hire. But again that's not where it starts.
And like I said... Laughlin seems to be perpetually short of IPs. Here's how that could work for you.
Say a reserve IP at SPS retires. Sure there's a line 20 guys long waiting for his job, but the reserve major at Laughlin who hates Del Rio gets priority, so that guy moves to SPS, leaving an opening at Laughlin. The line to fly at Laughlin is probably shorter, and you might get the spot from the guy who moved to SPS based on rank, availability, what kind of plane, AGR or TR, etc etc. The point is that you just need to put in the application at the group otherwise you'll never really know whats available and what's just rumor.