And unfortunately, in the compressed space of the IE (even more so without the orientation the night before the two days of test/evaluation stress that seems to happen with the smaller IEs), and given the language barriers which might be there, there is might be no way for the sort of simple review that makes everything understandable, including asking the BP/W wearer to loosen up their shoulder straps to make things easier for the course
Going through IEs with 25 fellow candidates is easy. You get grouped with the same language people, you have time with that group because large groups inherently create dead time, and with the same language grouping, the language skills to check everything out. And the one gear outlier has the opportunity to make sure every one understands his gear. If the IE has an orientation session, people even have the evening to change their gear setups. I would not want to be the only jacket user in a BP/W group any more than I would like to be the only BP/W user in a jacket.
With the smaller IEs, you might be the only person that speaks your language outside of an interpreter and the IE person, neither of whom is supposed to give the casual informal help that squares everything away quickly. We all learn in rescue how to run down new gear, but that presupposes we can actually ask questions of the gear owner.
Here's another small thing that gets people in trouble, because both that and the integrated weight came up on the most recent IE, during the rescue eval, and the language barrier was in force: BP/Ws have no chest clip, neither do certain brands of BCDs (TUSAs come to mind). With no language barrier it could become a teaching point in between candidates for the retry. But the two candidates did not share a language, so they had to spend time stressing out, miming out what to do with each other.
I love scubaPro Classics, the old non integrated weight versions. But those too, are next to impossible to get off someone if you have not done it before, and doubly so if the person has a smaller shoulder width, and has thus chosen a smaller size to stabilize on the shoulder. Once the technique is known to fold the arm, it's a breeze. Without that technique, it's near impossible. ANd it is hard to learn new techniques in the time frame of the rescue eval during the IE. I love it when people do, but it's not realistic to expect it.
As has been mentioned many times, in a real rescue, cutting off anything is completely justified. In the IE rescue eval you would be fail because it is not a teaching demo.