This is not the only forum where similar rules are enforced. It allows the moderator and other people to find and report spammers before they start flooding the main boards of the forum. It is also a friendlier part of a forum as "new member" questions are expected in here.

Please refer to the following post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177133.0) for more information.

Did you? You registered 5min ago...

The Top Sites are also very hard to read for some reason. Maybe a darker background for those boxes would help.