Right, spring perf is usually for fall hires (like you) and for people who're up for promotion. Since people's levels have historically been private (revealed only to people who are invited to peer review them, and to managers), and they lose face if they're up for a promotion and don't get it, yeah, people are cagey about all that... sigh... welcome to the non-transparent side of the company.

Pleasantly, there's much less caginess in the fall since everyone knows that everyone is doing it.

A is indeed my boss, and I appreciate that fact a great deal. I give everyone code names on my LJ, and I've decided his name is Galahad. :)