Reading all this...
Brings up one key difference between college rules and pretty much everyone else's rules.
In college ball, you're out when you're hit. Whether you see it, feel it, know about it, or don't know when you're hit, you're out, period.
If you're hit anywhere other than somewhere you could neither see, hear or feel (even if it might have been a nounce, doesn't matter), and you're still playing, that's playing on. That means if you get hit in the back, you can't play until you know you're clean.
Well, to rephrase, you CAN play, but if it broke, you'll get the playing on penalty.
There's two reasons for this. One, even if it's a bounce, the other player hit you - why should you get to keep playing just because you can't tell if it broke or not?
And two, it changes the player motivation from trying to not get checked so they can keep playing to wanting to be checked as soon as possible so they can start playing again.
It's why you'll see players in non-college tournaments just scream "Paint check!" while college players will ask for a paint check and tell you exactly where they think they're hit - they don't have time to waste for the ref to check a buncha spots where they know they arn't hit, whereas in non-college events, you want that ref checking every spot on your body that doesn't have a hit as long as possible.
The only real downside to this change is that bounces are often "good enough" to get a player eliminated if they're bunkering someone - if a player takes a shot on a bunker run, they'll usually prefer to call themselves out on a bounce over pulling a playing-on penalty for continuing to play with a hit.
- Chris