I am in the exact same boat. I am almost done with my M.Div at a conservative school and am hoping to get into one of the major div schools. I have thought quite a bit about how to improve my chances, and I have come to some of the same conclusions listed here. However, I would want to know how one goes about getting respectable LORs in this situation. Are the adcoms going to look with disdain on a LOR from a conservative professor?