Just curious: what country are you from? I'm from Denmark and my L-1B process wasn't nearly as bad; certainly not as bad as my IR1 which is still ongoing--but maybe the fact that I have an IR1 application helped with the L visa somehow.
Interesting. A couple of years ago a company was going to move me to the states on an L1A (executive transfer); even though I was "only" the tech lead they seemed confident it would be fairly easy. Then again, they then proceeded to go bust in the GFC so what would they know.
Any hope of being transferred under that category instead?
The problem with L-1A is that you're expected to directly manage a significant amount of people. As far as I understand, it's harder to get, but it is extensible up to 7 years, compared to only 5 years for L-1B.
So far there's a pile of documents about 30cm high, and that hasn't yet been enough to appease USCIS.