Great post by JohnC. Good stuff.
A couple ideas for you guys:
~ Chords and chord shapes. JohnC is correct that it is the shape and muscle memory of it that is most important. But connecting the theory can help dramatically with remembering them. This is kind of old-school, but I make flash cards for each new chord or chord shape (same with scales). You do this at a time of the day when the guitar is not slung around your neck. Or I write out the chord in a chord chart, then again with the note names, then again with the intervals. Knowing the intervals will come in handy later in many ways, I assume. Write them out each day before you start practicing them. Memorized completely within a week. It only takes a few minutes to write them out. With the flash cards, I actually use scissors and a glue stick.
~ I also write out the pentatonic scales. Right now, I am practicing the first pattern, and connecting it to the second pattern and also in the other direction to the fifth pattern. So I write out (draw circles around the sting/fret, and fill in note or interval) the three patterns on a blank fretboard diagram. This is super important, as knowing where the roots and blue notes in the patterns in key. But more than that, in the scale you can bend any note that is not the root or the 5th. Thus, I also draw the scales with the notes that I can bend shaded in, and all the roots and fifth intervals identified. Then, when I jam, I can look at the drawing and focus on landing on the root, bending the 4th, etc. Better to know it like this than to learn a million licks and eventually kind of figure out what notes you can play.