As someone who has been dealing with county permit departments for the better part of 20 years now, i have found that "In Person" is the best way to get things done. Though it is getting better.
As much as I'd enjoy the 50 mile ride since it's such a nice day, I can't really justify it for a revised panel schedule. But yeah, face time is about the only way to get anything moving along or to get anyone to understand the most basic concepts. It's funny how advanced some of the locals are over others - one just went to electronic submittal on everything except the plan set itself. They're down with PDF's.
Though I can't guess why everything could not just be PDF.