Is bitcointalk being flooded with bots?
Yes. And shitposters/account farmers which might as well be bots because they contribute little to nothing here. I've suggested a few things to try combat this. All new accounts have to be manually verified by a staff member before their posts show up. Removing signatures completely from lower ranks until you've got at least one merit or achieved Member status etc. A a captcha for your first post or two.
What type of verification are you talking about here?
That captcha for some posts sounds like a good idea. It can reduce the spam with bots to some extent.