I downloaded Skeen's book and read through it. He is right on the money.
I suggest that you can indeed form an accurate opinion about a unit through observation alone. Watching videos like the recent BBC series on Afghanistan and/or for example the movie Restrepo will give you a good idea. Weaknesses in fieldcraft, weapon handling, combat drills, combat leadership etc tend to jump out at you (and my my case often so vividly that I want to shout "you are going to get yourself killed you f**king idiot. Where is the sergeant? Where is the damn officer?") Often I can't bear to watch yet there are people who say they thought it was a great video/movie and saw nothing untoward... maybe that says something about them, I don't know.
Yes it is difficult to set a standard (and maintain it) until it becomes an ingrained part of unit culture because we tend to get lazy and slack off if there appears to be no immediate threat. It takes a great effort in a unit to achieve operational competence and no matter how good the CO and officers are if the Sergeants Mess (being the senior NCOs) are limited/weak you can go whistle into the wind it is not going to happen.
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