It's funny you asked about the promotion...because DH came home last night and told me that it's now shaping up that he actually may be the front-runner. They're still dragging their feet on deciding what they're going to do, but that has more to do with them being in height of their busy season and the fact that they had their huge executive visit yesterday.
They have a guy who's filling in right now and he also applied, but he's not really impressing anyone. DH also said that their quality manager (who's part of the hiring panel) has an interest in him as well and told him outright that if this doesn't pan out, she'd like to see about getting him on her team.
Oh yeah and his presentation went really well yesterday. DH also got face time with the VP and got a lot of questions answered and misconceptions cleared up.