Well, Dave, I must respectfully disagree with your statement that "if there is any sign someone else has ever camped there, it is not boondocking."
The dispersed camping rules in every national forest, as far as I know, strongly recommends (if not requires) that we camp in places that have already been trampled by other campers -- otherwise, if we all chose to camp on untracked fresh ground, the whole forest would soon be trampled.
I don't know if BLM land follows the same rules.
If I am wrong about the national forest rules, let me know! Thanks.