It boggles the mind that a company can devote half a dozen designers to optimizing the experience for potential customers, but for potential employees it's "Well, HR says you have to fill out this form, and I guess what they say goes."
Sharing an email account (devjobs@mycompany.com) scales is nicely for a few jobs with light candidate flow. It can start to break down when trying to organize things in a meaningful way for all parties, but mildy disciplined use of a Gmail account is pretty solid when compared to much heavier solutions, like Taleo.
Due to the large number of administrative tasks (posting ads, scheduling interviews, etc.), the walled garden platforms that refuse to give you (and each other) decent API access, and the number of relationships to stay on top of, there's really no substitute for good someone who stays on top of it all.
As a hiring manager, if you insist on managing the process end to end, you're the recruiter, too :)
That would have been one hell of an addition to my resume, and it's far more likely that plain email would have worked. Of course, a recruiter wouldn't have got his cut...
You could always request applicants include a word in the subject to filter out spam and people that can't follow instructions.
I generally don't apply when I see a complex form. Instead I try emailing the company.
Related: It's amazing how many HR depts are not equipped to handle a submission of the form "My CV and projects are on janedoe.com/cv.html, let me know if you'd like to talk." In a sane world, that would be the default by now.
I get people calling me because they found my contact information on my website, then demanding that I send them a "Word copy of your resume". A) there's a PDF there already. B) There's more up to date information in the site itself and C) WTF - don't call me then demand I send you something in another format. You only want it in Word format so you can edit it up anyway. (mostly recruiters, I know, but still pisses me off).
I once interviewed myself for a position via a pretty large company's body shop subsidiary. Not really sure how they got my resume.