[Chance]

I think the real conversation to have is whether or not forum applications (for signatures) should exist in the first place. The wait time will always be there, and occasional feelings of discontent if there's a denial (which there are a lot of). 

There have been periods of fantastic staff activity and commitment, where they were on top of things, but that can't be expected constantly. There is no simple solution to this as both managing and maintaining the process requires daily commitment from an entire team, who are volunteers, on top of everything else we have to do to run the game itself. 

The changes Meranthe made, with mastery tokens, the various classes you can invest into, and generally being able to learn a lot of stuff solely via in-game interactions, was a big improvement. The form has also been a vehicles for dozens of approvals, typically when a request is eye catching or deserved, saving a bit of time people would've spent on forum apps. The applications sub-forum (specifically for abilities) is a net negative experience IMO, and alternatives should be considered to make more people feel cool and snowflake without having to go through an out-of-game experience.

Moving signatures back to the form only, and involving all staff in that process would likely be a healthy change from all angles.