I was a member earlier via my primary email ID, but they started asking existing members to answer those questions - which I didn't, so now I can't use my primary email address.
I tried couple of times with another email address before getting accepted. Somehow listing location as Kolkata instead of Bangalore might have helped
The intent is primarily to keep the quality of posts/conversations high, which is good. However, I agree that the crazy moderation while signing up can be made less strict - they anyway have 25 post moderation, etc - good enough I guess.
I find TE to be a pretty decently moderated forum, with less of the rules. Sure, some of the SMS lingo etc come into some of the posts, but again, moderation/comments here take care of that.
Personally I found T-BHP to be pretty helpful for my car buying queries, as I was more of a noob. Very helpful people, most of them. But then I just bought a lowly Wagon-R and do not have strong opinions on most of the technical stuff there
Other forums like carwale do not seem up to the mark. Will try gearheads sometime.