Steve, I believe you mentioned you had worked in the utility industry previously. My current job involves testing and commissioning of protection and control systems in HV and EHV substations. I completely agree with you that peer review is extremely valuable. It is a major tenant of the engineering process and when done correctly can lead to major reductions in mistakes, errors and accidents. The problem I see all too often though is lack of resources both human and time. What I am seeing more and more of lately are significant errors making it to the field. Things that should have been caught but due to only cursory reviews by engineers that already have a lot on their plate managed to make it by.
It sounds like you may be having some of the same resource issues. Having only two to three weeks to review these type of projects seems to be a bit tight in my opinion especially if any changes need to be made. Having personally already invested many thousands of dollars not to mention equally as many hours as well scheduling my entire year around this, it would be a bit more comforting to know that we are good to go and have a safe and thoroughly reviewed design. I must be honest this whole part of the process worries me. Perhaps a suggestion. could you possibly utilize some members of the organization like Jim or TAPs with similar experience to sponsor these type of projects. They could help be the go between to help set expectations and provide guidance along the way so that when a final review is made most of the detail have already been discussed. This would also allow the project to be viewed at a much earlier stage in the design and perhaps any red flags could be addressed long before they make it to the final product.
I for one welcome a thorough review, as stated earlier my number one goal for this mission is safety.
One of my favorite sayings from my days when I thought climbing mountains was "fun" was:
"Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory!"
Well since we all know that no rocket we have flown has ever stayed up there maybe an adapted mantra could work for us:
"Getting it up there is optional, getting it down safely is mandatory!"