www,
Dont dig a hole here, of course 'legally' the standards are the same. In reallity however, examiners are far more lenient with a revalidation. Its not a 'full' skills test as per initial. A precision approach, a non precision, efato on the go around, and some u/p rcovery is about as much as the average examiner seems to cover. Most(certainly all my local examiners) seem to treat the trip as a further training flight, as typically, most of them like to teach. Get something wrong and theyre far more likely to make you do it again. That certainly wont happen on an initial test. When i did my reval recently, I forgot to feather after the efato on the go around. I was simply made to do it again. On an initial I would have partialled that part of the test.
As for competency, of course people wont be as profficient after 12 months. I have yet to hear of anyone however needing 3 and half grands worth of refresher raining! As you are no doubt fully aware, IR skills can get rusty but you quickly learn to 'ride the bike' again after a couple of trips, it soon comes flooding back.