British Expats - Follow Up re previous visa refusal & ESTA entry

Hi there,I tried to post a follow up in an old thread I started but that thread has closed, so apologies for starting a new one.

The old thread is here:http://britishexpats.com/forum/us-im...-846613/page2/

In summary:

* I was refused a B1/B2 visa about 6 years ago on a Malaysian passport. I was eventually granted a 10 year B1/B2 but now have to answer 'yes' to the visa refusal question on the ESTA form for the rest of my life.

*I have since received my Australian citizenship and applied for an ESTA for my last trip to the US. The ESTA application was approved after 3 or 4 hours in 'pending' status.

*Compounding all of the above I got my dad's name (in my ESTA application) wrong - entered his family name as his first name and vice versa. But was advised by CBP and the wise folks here that this is immaterial given it's got nothing to do with my passport biometric info.

To follow up, we entered the US twice in October (also went to Canada on the same trip) with absolutely no hassles. We were able to take advantage of pre-clearance at Abu Dhabi airport (which then allowed us to arrive at JFK as "domestic" passengers which was an absolute god-send and avoided a lot of the chaos of immigration and customs at JFK) and Montreal. The entire entry experience couldn't have felt more seamless. I took along my airline staff ID with me as evidence of employment (which I needed to prove eligibility for industry rates at hotels anyway) but didn't need it. The guy at Abu Dhabi airport pre-clearance didn't ask any questions other than the purpose of my trip, whilst we only got the standard 'how long are you in the US for?' at Montreal pre-clearance. Hopefully others in similar situations find this data point helpful and reassuring. And my thanks to those on here for all their advice. (Apologies for the formatting which makes things hard to read. I have no idea why it's merging all the paragraphs together!)