What does that mean?  The reason states "On hold"

person who was to approve it couldn't make the decision either way. So he deferred it to his higher-ups.

Not true.  I've had reviews "deferred" for BS reasons, but it has nothing to do with the approver not being able to make a decision and passing it along to "higher ups".  

IMO guys with 20+ reviews should have reviews approved in real time and not wait.

did not have any reviews yet, so TER wanted to wait until more corroborating reviews came in to prevent a shill or self-review from going up.

I suppose there could be other reasons to defer publishing a review.