In the old Cadet program guidelines it was recommended that a Cadet must complete at least two achievements in a calendar year. Is this not required or recommended under the new policy?
Correct, that language has been dropped in the latest release of the regs.
There is still a requirement on cadets to "progress satisfactorily", but it is now significantly more subjective (and thus open to rebuttal, I suppose) (my squadron still holds the 'twice a year' standard, locally and wrote it in the OI so it is in ink.)
As we do it, locally, two achievements a year (including milestones). So Achievement 8 and the Mitchell count, if a cadet did only those two things in a year, they would be minimally sat for the the year.