Your post is confused. You can use home bank only for first application out of country. You can use income instead or in conjunction with savings with a proof of income from your home embassy if not applying in your home country

Not correct....you can convert TR to retirement extension in-country

There is shuttle service from town

Correct, but the OP mentioned settlement and fiancee visa would be the appropriate option if not planning to return to Thailand

You can apply for a fiancee visa which permits your partner to travel to the UK for the purposes of marriage. If she comes on a visitor (tourist) visa, you won't be able to get married as most places are required by law to check as to visa validity

I used my Thai DL as proof of residence to get ETD from British Embassy even though I was only on a tourist visa, and went to Cambodia before returning to Thailand to get new passport. I needed to transfer the remaining validity of my Thai visa into my ETD before leaving Thailand. I had no problems leaving or re-entering and my new passport was back within 3 weeks

When I did my extension last year, I turned up at 6am, and finished mid-afternoon. The people turning up after 8am when they started handing out tickets (I think about 18) were being told to come back the next day, as they were no longer issuing tickets for that day, so maybe you've been lucky so far

I was there last week at 4am for Retirement visa, and was 4th in line, and there was 1 person in the line for Volunteer (which is the next line across from the Retirement line) at that time. Obviously, it will vary day by day

TM30 links to TM6 (arrival form) so that's why they make a bigger fuss about updating if you've left the country, as their system no longer matches up

Tod Daniels if you have permanent residency, then you would have a Thai national ID number issued (starting with 5 if memory serves me right) so you wouldn't have (or need) a yellow book. But PR is pretty rare. I know only 3 guys (two in BKK and one in Phuket) who have PR and all have substantial businesses, speak excellent Thai and been here for some years. One of them I know paid (or had someone pay on his behalf) to facilitate his PR, but apparently, under the junta, it hasn't been neccessary