When it comes to prepping a home for renters, versus a "forever-home", do you consider the quality of material when making cosmetic updates?

If you want to do it yourself but not too much work then you can look for higher quality, stabilized properties.

When I see that, I usually take it as good but still consider other factors more heavily like length of employment, length/quality of Landlord reference, etc.

There is a chance you do not possess paperwork from that long ago, in which case hopefully the former employer still exists and has records, you can also request tax returns transcripts from the IRS website or by filling out paperwork and mailing it in.Interestingly, banks don't do comprehensive criminal background checks (just for financial crimes specifically, though I've never personally worked on a loan where that came up, guess I'm not on the Wolf of Wall Street's speed dial).

Quality over quantity.

As always in real estate, the quality of your management experience is a function of who you attract to the unit.

My housekeeper kind of has 2 speeds

It was based in part on the faulty premise that the influx of dollars into a blighted area could change the quality of the area. 

My focus is to get as many cards and make as many calls as I need to build a quality team of fellow investors, contractors, re agents, etc.

At the end of the day, the way I look at it (since this is my housing cost too) is I would be spending $1500+ minimum to live this quality of lifestyle and if I can get that number low/close to zero, I'm winning.