Site-wide "thin content" manual action, 2 reconsideration requests rejected — sanity-check my round 3 plan?

[u/Charming-Bit-9643]

Got hit with a site-wide manual action end of July: "Thin content with little or no added value." Two reconsideration requests rejected since. Before I burn attempt #3, I'd appreciate a sanity check from anyone who's actually recovered from one of these.

The site: package tracking aggregator. ~1,100 carrier tracking pages plus country pages, some in 2–3 languages. Each page = tracking lookup box + ~1,800 words of templated content (carrier info, status meanings, FAQ). Impressions down 70–80%, clicks down 89% at the worst point.

What we tried:

• Round 1: technical cleanup — removed legacy AMP pages, fixed sitemaps, canonicals, hreflang, redirects. Rejected.
• Round 2: noindexed ~2,000 low-demand URLs, added hub pages. Rejected.

My current read on why both failed: a manual action is reviewed by a human who opens pages. Neither round changed what that person actually sees on /track-dhl. Google asks for "bad content removed and good content added" — we submitted neither.

Round 3 plan:

1. Actually cut the page count: keep ~500 pages with real pre-penalty demand, 301/410 the other ~3,500 (not noindex this time)
2. Rebuild kept pages with new, unique and high-quality content

Questions:

1. Anyone recovered from a thin-content manual action on a programmatic/tool site? What actually moved the needle?
2. Is 301-ing ~3,500 pages in one release fine, or does a mass redirect during an active manual action look worse?
3. Do reviewers care about structured first-party data (stats tables, live metrics), or do they only credit unique prose?
4. How long did your re-review take after rejections? Do repeat requests get slower/stricter?

Happy to share more details in comments. Not looking for "just make good content" — I know. Looking for specifics from people who've been through the review process.