If any very-veteran members want to volunteer, I can give you the ability to whitelist users.
I do not think I pass as very-veteran, but I'll be interested in giving it a shot if given the opportunity
Before whitelisting someone, you have to do something to be pretty sure that they're not evading a ban and just going to get banned again.
This would be difficult to ascertain and cannot be 100% efficient, but would be more efficient than a payment mechanism which simply allows anyone in as long as they can pay the gate fee while forcing a few to pay a fee for something they know nothing about.