Problem is the official definition of unemployment disregards the many who drop off the unemployment-insurance rolls, never qualified for unemployment-insurance to begin with so were never counted and those who are long-term unemployed

Because they're not part of the labor force for reasons independent of a given economic cycle. If I'm on Long Term Disability because of some chronic medical issue, the number of job postings, the current interest rates, and prevailing wage rates won't incentivize me to look for a job. If I'm retired, there's not a lot you can do to the labor market to entice me back out of it. If I'm going to college for a professional degree, you're not going to lure me back into a dead-end service sector job with a marginal change in job availability. If there's a glut of construction jobs, that won't impact my search for a nursing position or an IT gig.

Stats are great but go out and do some qualitative data gathering by talking to people.

Sure. But the conclusions you'll reach are that people are sticky for reasons that have nothing to do with regional economic policy. Looking at U3 gives us a picture of prevailing trends among active job-seekers. Dragging in a bunch of people who aren't looking for jobs doesn't give us a clear picture of changes in job availability among people looking for work. You're just muddying the waters to make the unemployment figure look scarier than it is.