@cygnus_ww
Yeah, visa applications can suck tremendously, and I expect this is in no small part because the entire enterprise of migration control is pretty sucky at its core: coming up with reason to deny foreigners from tainting the motherland...
As an aside, I wonder if the visa services in the EU have deteriorated after Schengen was enacted and made visa applicants more purely into "foreigners" as most neighbours now don't need to trouble with it?