[setgree]

I thought this as well. You probably have some number in mind where you'd walk over coals to get it, right? This is like that, except the barriers are tedious to endure rather than physically painful.

OTOH, if you get an offer and you feel queasy about things, you can have the all-too-rare-in-life privilege of asking impolite questions and maybe getting a real response, e.g., "The way you made me jump through all these hoops makes me think that the company culture might be rigid and dysfunctional. Is it?" And then see what happens!