Once we publish the request status to the applicant portal, it doesn't seem like we can tell that on the Request record. I'd to be able to see that I've published it so that I don't keep trying to publish it over and over again. There's just no way to see that a specific request's status has been published.
Yes it is causing some confusion keeping track of this.
I don't know how/why this isn't built into the system by default. Agree this is critical functionality.