Mud Recce Man: Are you and your MCpl staying in the same trade, or changing trades as well? That can make a tremendous difference in the speed of the process. As well, the new "expedited" process is only for those staying in trade.
In addition, one of the stumbling blocks is generally not the recruiting system, but rather the Army office charged with examining your file and assessing equivalencies and such. We've made such a hash of the training system, with fundamental overhauls and changes to courses several times over the past few years that it can be difficult to identify what training can be written off and what must be done (or done again).