I really like this short-and-sweet list of advice -- it's well formated and well thought out. I, too, have foregone the thalaron pulse. The (possible fictitious) bug with the shielded cloak has kept me away from equipping all three consoles, and I don't think there's been much of a loss. I was also considering using DBBs…
My suspicion is that the hair option was unintentionally taken out during the June 20th patch; the patch notes states that "Added additional head customization options for Romulans" -- which, in at least this one case, isn't true.
I think it has something to do with the "bridge officers temporarily appear as space ships in the menu" bug; any time I get and then clear that error, my department heads have been changed.
I confused that with the bridge officer spots you get as you level. I just assumed there were some unlocks, considering how many slots I have on my higher level characters versus my new characters. My bad. That doesn't change the fact that I don't have access to things like the Veteran uniforms or ship materials.
After I created my Romulan, I thought it might be a racial thing. But I also made a new Federation character and played through the tutorial, and I didn't unlock any rewards, either. I'll keep an eye out out for them going forward.