When I created a SF project some years ago, it required approval from some mysterious and unknown administrator. That process took a week, and during that time I didn't have access to the resources I needed (version control, mailing list, issue tracker, etc.) to get my project off the ground.
Things may have changed since, but I wouldn't know because I never came back.
Yeah, we got rid of that process at least 3 years ago when I was still there. There's some after the fact attempt to not allow spam projects, but you can get started right away now (thankfully, that was a super slow process).
Things may have changed since, but I wouldn't know because I never came back.