Agreed. That's the kind of technicality I'm referring to, the prior art not being in the original record even though it's in the soon-to-be-official recert. The new examiner must be aware of what has transpired in those regards IMHO.

...good question. I don't think they made an error, they're just being thorough. Note that this weak reex wasn't Denied, it was Incomplete, which was a requestor delay tactic IMHO. The PTO could not deny it at that point and were required to give them more time to resubmit. The now redundant corrected request was not denied for the technical reasons you aforementioned and will be dealt with accordingly in due time...another part of the delay tactic. After seeing what Opty has come up with, it's only a matter of procedure before it's put to bed IMHO. How long that will take, I don't know but I'm sticking around to find out.

GLTAL