The barrier that this experience throws up, is whilst it will hamper the spammers (though I'm sure someone will get around that pretty quickly by throwing some delegations around), it is a very big disincentive for genuine new users.
Before someone wants to throw their hard-earned cashola at something new, humans tend to want to dip their toe in the water first take it for a test drive. The experience Dave has described is akin to "Test Drive? Sure. Just start it up, reverse down the driveway and then in a couple of days you can come back and drive it back up here..."
That's a perfect analogy. You get to the dealer and he does that, are you coming back in 3 days for another 10 feet? I don't think so. Great analogy @sparkesy43 :)