Same boat here to.  Honest question, why do they have such tight restrictions?  I would be happy to spend some time filling out a form, etc to prove that I'm not a bot, but the current set up just leads to people making worthless posts in the newbie area to "gain credibility" which really just takes away from the forums.

It seems like there should be some other measure or way to keep spam out.  Just my 2 cents!