Not sure how it managed to take you so long, but I do agree it's a PITA, and pure theatre.

I did need to get into D&B, and it was a bit of a faff - their website is a maze, and it took around a week after filling the form to get listed. Didn't need much time on it though.

One of the other requirements I had to fulfil was having a telephone number published in a sanctioned list of websites for a callback - so I registered a Skype number, published the number, did the callback, and terminated the number. Not sure what that was meant to prove...