In CiviMember, can one set a rule where expired members, when renewing, are assigned probation status
Welcome Lawrence: One thought would be to take the approach that if an expired member signs up again, that rather than renewing the original membership, it creates a brand new one - in which case i assume your existing Probation process would work fine.

I don't recall if there is an Extension or just a setting to change CiviMember to always create a new membership but i know it has been done as some Ors prefer that.

If you think that could work for you, I or someone else can probably post a link to it if providing you with the idea is not enough to help you find it yourself.

UPDATE

Also note that eg for Drupal there is a Member Role Synch module that lets you specify what User Roles are given/removed based on the civi membership type and status