;D
Have you ever wondered how many PM's mods get asking "hey, do you guys want another moderator?" or something of the sort? I'm guessing it's not ALOT.. but more than you'd expect. But I'm guessing they're on to ignoring those PM's, kind of like the people who PM for personal one on one help.. when it would be better to ask in the forum for all to see. 
And how exactly do they decide who's going to be a mod? Is it by suggestions only? How many posts they've made? How many RELEVANT posts they've made? Do we have a dance off?
Then, how you do you stop the children from complaining that they weren't given the chance to be a moderator, when in fact they "applied" months ago by PMing a random moderator expecting an answer?
But anyways.. onto the "spam", I think they're doing a good job. I can't remember if I read it in this post earlier.. or another post.. but I remember a moderator mentioning that they DIDN'T want to add a Captcha.. I think the one time sign-up is okay.. considering you can't post links on the first post. (keep them both!) I know it won't stop them all.. but it will limit some.. also the e-mail verification would be awesome. I wouldn't mind signing up with my e-mail address, as long as I don't get spam-o-la in my e-mail. 
I'm not sure how hard it would be.. but maybe for a new users first 10 posts, they can't post one after another within 1 minute. So make their first post.. then have to wait a minute to post a second. Etc. Until their first 10 posts are up.
But regardless of everything, I'm thankful for the time you guys put into these forums!