Days of time?
Creating an account takes mere seconds.
Creating a fake email accounts take seconds.
I could make 40 accounts in 1 hour, no problem.
Where does the days come in?
then go do it

. 40 accounts x .008 BTC = .32 BTC if you don't mind spending that much and you trust NEM will be worth the investment

It was much easier for the early people to do it since it was free, but there will be less and less as the fee rises imo.
Just remember to PM utopian later when the PM's for the stakeholders are sent out.
Guarantee there were people doing the same with NXT early on to bypass the 1 BTC restriction. It's hard in a decentralized anonymous way to make anything completely fair.