Talked to a manager a few levels higher than me the other day. He made it clear that the managers had no idea that an SL4 would get anyone fired. I looked at him like he was crazy and reminded him of last year. "But those ISPs were not based on only one SL4."
He then clarified that not only did they not know, it's to Intel's advantage not to let anyone know what the criteria are. After all if your manager knows the criterial next year, unless he's a complete ass he will do whatever he can not to put you in the criteria.
So BK and HR deliberately will no longer tell anyone the future firing criteria, just to keep the managers from getting around it. Of course this policy is in direct conflict with how Focal and ranking and rating have always worked; where you knew where you stood and knew what you had to do to get out of the dog house.