IMO, we should only reply Applications on Campaigns or something that has to do with the thread like payment issues, duration etc.
I agree, wrong applications does not really make up the spam the easily clogs up such threads, sometimes the numerous replies resulting from it could be the reason, the discussions sometimes veers off the purpose of the thread itself and important information could be lost easily. There are a couple of other off topic replies on that thread, but yours was first after the application and was likely reported early on.
Rather than replying to every wrong application, maybe we should let the manager handle the situation based on their discretion, 99% of the time they would ignore it.
Also got curious, let say for example a post is deleted by a moderator but the post is proven not to violate any forum rule could that post somehow be restored from being deleted or once it got deleted its final?
I believe it's theoretically possible to restore a post(maybe only by admins), I however think this should only be used in sensitive cases like; the author a of a self-moderared thread censoring important replies for personal gain.