...Then someone in another district tells me he challenged the FAA on that to produce a rule, and they could not, and after a couple weeks bantering back and forth with them, he just mailed in his app and got it....
This sounds about right! Different answers from different people and different regions.
I say pursue the **** out of it. If you have to go to the FSDO, do it. If you don't like their customer service, try someone else. Don't do what I did and succumb to the bureaucratic red tape.
In the late '89, I went to the FSDO in Fresno, just down the road from where I was stationed at NAS Lemoore. I took a copy of my training jacket, with highlighter all over it, and a copy of the A&P oral and practical study guide with everything cross referenced so that it could be easily validated. All I was looking for was a waiver to sit for the A&P written based on my OJT and work experience.
I had, at that point, more than 8 years of airframe and powerplant experience, doing everything from flight control rigging to skin repairs to engine remove&replace. Plus, I had a ton of experience doing general servicing and daily, turnaround , and phased maintenance interval inspections.
The guy that interviewed me refused to even look at anything I brought to show my OJT and experience. All he saw was that my navy rating (primary MOS) was "Avionics". That's all it took for him to deny my application.
As helo aircrewman with a maintenance rating, I was assigned to small units or detachments in which everyone was cross-trained as much as possible. When I was at Lemoore, I was designated as an "all-systems" QA, (navy's equivalent of an IA).
I've been told since, that guy was FOS. But, at the time I was so pissed, I didn't bother taking it any further.