In Philadelphia newly inducted members being promoted is almost always due to a decline in active membership because of either law enforcement crackdowns or the then-boss simply not wanting to make anyone for a while.
Angelo Bruno made relatively few new members over the course of his 20 year reign as boss, though he did hold making ceremonies while the books in New York were closed. Thus, when Phil Testa, and then Nicky Scarfo, becomes the boss they have guys around them who feel they deserved to have been made for a while, particularly if they had been involved in murders. Also, Testa and Scarfo were appointed bosses by the Commission, not solely by the captains. Though Scarfo had the support of most of the captains when he became boss, following Bruno's murder the popular choice to run the family, according to George Fresolone, was Frank Sindone, not Testa. And also due to the violent nature of regime changes, Scarfo in particular wanted people close to him to be in captain positions. For those reasons you have Scarfo, within the first year of his reign, promoting Phil Leonetti, Larry Merlino and Salvie Testa to captains while making Chuckie Merlino underboss, all of whom were made by Phil Testa in 1980. Scarfo did the same thing following Testa's murder by promoting Tommy DelGiorno and Faffy Iannarella to acting capos in 1984 (they had both been made only for a couple of years).
When Scarfo went to prison he didn't allow Tony Piccolo to make any new members in Philadelphia, because he felt that doing so would be a sign of resignation to the fact that he was never coming home, and had to be convinced to allow members to be inducted in North Jersey. Scoops Licata and George Fresolone are then interesting figures in this example. Both were long-time associates who had proved themselves in their ability to earn money for the organisation and would have likely been inducted earlier than they were (Fresolone would have been made at the same ceremony as Licata in 1986 if he hadn't been incarcerated at the time). When Patty Martirano became a fugitive in 1988 the natural choices to run the crew were Licata, Fresolone and Duke Attanasio. Martirano wanted to have Fresolone made so he could be the acting capo (as he was Martirano's right-hand-man and would be made one day anyway) but Piccolo initially refused as Scarfo wouldn't allow him to make anyone. It therefore went to Licata but when Fresolone finally was made in 1990 he was promoted to captain of a new crew the very next day and was told he was next in line to become underboss once Martirano died.
The promotions of Fresolone and Licata arose from the circumstance of the older members of the crew generally being closer to retirement than the more active, younger members and delays, particularly with Fresolone, on them getting their button. Since Fresolone had been around for so long and was so trusted by Martirano, he was likely promoted knowing he could handle the job of captain, despite having no experience as a member.
The four years of stagnation at the end of the Scarfo era and the significant loss of active members to murder and law enforcement crackdowns left John Stanfa in the unenviable position of having to effectively re-build the organisation. He therefore had little choice but to initiate new members and promote them to hierarchy positions simply so there could be a hierarchy at all and his problem was exacerbated with the Merlino war as he realised he needed more guys around him he could count on in membership roles. This was by far the most drastic case of promoting new members to hierarchy positions with John Veasey and Luigi Tripodi. Whereas other Stanfa-inductees like Joey Chang, Frank Martines and Vincent Pagano had blood ties and experience as family associates, Tripodi and Veasey had little to no prior experience with the mob. Veasey in particular was first approached by Martines in early August, committed his first murder for Stanfa a few days later, committed a second murder about a month after that, was made at the end of September and promoted to capo a few weeks later due to his efficiency as a killer and a street tax collector. Veasey had been an associate for just under two months when he became a member and was only a member for a few weeks before becoming a captain. That was the kind of mistake that led Stanfa's organisation to crumble as, in the rush to rebuild and gain loyalists in the fight against Merlino, he brought in and promoted people he barely knew and who would turn on him and put him away for life.
The start of the Merlino/ Natale era is a little different because they were rebuilding again, in the wake of the Stanfa indictments, but Merlino was doing so with guys he'd known since childhood and had committed murders with (Mazzone, Borgesi etc). Being made also didn't mean quite the same thing to them as they expressed that, if Stanfa didn't make them they'd make themselves, which proved literal when Merlino, still just a soldier, made Natale and immediately appointed him boss.
The big mistakes Merlino and Natale made were due to greed, first in promoting Ron Previte to capo when they should have known better considering he was an ex-cop and had suspiciously survived the fall of the Stanfa organisation unscathed, and later bringing in Bob Luisi from Boston. First of all, Merlino did not have the permission from New York to make members from Boston, and secondly, Merlino and Natale had only met Luisi in 1998 before making him captain in 1999.
These poor decisions ultimately left the family in the hands of Joe Ligambi with an active membership of about 10 by the early 2000s. Ligambi had to rebuild in a way using newly inducted members until Merlino and co. finished up their racketeering sentences. But, unlike how that strategy came back to bite Stanfa and, to a lesser extent, Merlino, Ligambi did it differently with the promitions of Joe Curro and Anthony Staino. Curro was a long-time associate of the family who'd spent a considerable amount of time in jail for murder, and Staino was the nephew of Scarfo-era soldier Ralph Staino and had become Ligambi's top aide, so by the time both were made and promoted to acting consigliere and capo, respectively, they had put in time and were trusted. The family has stabled out since largely due to Ligambi's leadership style and decisions, and the most recent initiation and promotion we've heard of is Dom Grande, who has the blood connections, grew up in the life, faced charges before and proved himself as the shooter in the Gino DiPietro murder.
