[Zev]

To me, it sounds like the author reading too much into the (rather opaque) process to try and make sense of it.

Sometimes its fast, other times its not. Its usually consistent, but sometimes they mess up. Thats all we know for sure.

FWIW, my experience is app reviews take the same amount of time -- a week, plus or minus two days. This is regardless of if the submission is of a new app or an update for an existing one. Recent update, fixing something that caused a rejection or the first update in a few months.

[amdev]

Fair enough. I'm certainly going only from my own experiences and the review process certainly is opaque. I asked @pschiller so perhaps he'll grace us with some info. :)