Description
Some functions/files are sourced and absolute path is needed. I'm quite sure that relative path there is enough. We can save some lines with that.
this_script_dir=$(dirname $0) ##### COMMON INCLUDES FOR SCRIPTS ###### . $this_script_dir/functions.sh ##### COMMON INCLUDES FOR SCRIPTS ######
can be replaced with
##### COMMON INCLUDES FOR SCRIPTS ###### . functions.sh
I would also make a comment little less blocky.