I have long advocated the "seamless memberhsip" idea. I agree that a parent's signature (indicating that they are aware that their son has joined Scouting-- or another phase-- I don't think we need another application. I think a spreadsheet with parent and leader signature would work just as well and save the BSA $$$thousands in printing applications.
Same true for adult leaders.
Basically, this is what we do when renewing a charter. Names on a list and signatures.
There should be a "technology" checklist. Arriving as a first-time Scout executive I naively assumed that much of my information had been already passed to national human resource personnel only to discover that on opening my fiscal reports in the new council I found my former council's information, and same for membership etc. Same for my retirement information and other personnel data.
While we do have a good council-based orientation checklist (found in the new hire packet but not readily available to someone transferring into the council) we do not have a checklist to update Scoutnet-based personnel records, including new council passwords etc. (We leave this to an office person who may not have all the skill either.)
It would be a good tool for a Scout executive or staff leader to be sure that our newest staff member is "in the system" correctly.
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