In message <3F1BBCB7.4547.12179C65@localhost> you write:
> > A solution is not immediately obvious to me, but I'll play with things to
> > see if one presents itself.
> Use  Send= Editor,Hold   rather than   Send= Editor

Thanks John. I considered that, but I believe that changing that
setting would switch approval to require an "OK" reply, right? It's
ultimately 6-and-a-half but I decided to try to find a solution to the
status problem.

It turned out that the problem was within the mail client I was using
for approval itself (IMP). Pine doesn't send the Status header in
redirected or bounced mails and so in the short term I've switched to
it. In the slightly longer term, I think I've identified the lines in
IMP (since it's an open source project) that should be omitting the
Status header when redirecting a mail and I'll try to send the project
maintainers a patch and explanation of this problem.

Pratik