Thanks. Here are the answers to your questions:
Filed from the state of Maine,
Yes we (attorney) received a letter from DOL Maine that the case is sent to DOL Boston on 12th Aug'04. I guess the delay of 4 months is because of the elections - probably the staff had some kind of election duty or something else but the processing seemed to have stopped during that time.
We called up DOL Boston on Nov 18 and were told that a query was sent to the attorney's office. The attorney & the employer replied to the query on 6th Dec'04.
I hear some approvals from Boston DOL these days, hopefully you too will get yours soon, Good Luck.