I understand why it's here, but it'd be nice to have a recommendation system (with penalties for the recommender if the recomendee scams, to discourage sales) so that joke accounts of established members, like this one, can make it through quickly 
And, as you found out, that's exactly what we have. In fact, I specifically mention it in the OP of the whitelist request sticky:If you learned of Bitcoin through a currently established member of this forum who feels that you are ready to be released to the rest of the forum or who is willing to mentor you, or if you want to make a new account that is separate from your already-existing established forum account, have the existing user/account vouch for you after you have made your request.