Re: the hard boiled eggs. I place mine in a pot filled with ice and water while the eggs are still hot. The eggs literally jump out of the shell once they have cooled.
DO NOT USE FRESH EGGS.
When I was on the farm, we tended to make a lot more egg salad in bulk than, say, custards. I had color coded dots with a sharpie pen on the carton for each week's eggs and as batches of 3 week old eggs were used up for egg salad, the 2 week old ones would be rotated into the "old" slots.