This may not be applicable for everyone in all situations, but I got a merchant account in a few days with not too much effort, by simply going to my local bank and talking to someone. They put me in touch with their regional person in charge of merchant accounts. That person asked me a few questions, then came out to my local branch a few days later. She asked me a few more questions while we sat in a conference room, had me verify information, and then we were done. I had the merchant account details within the week, ready for API integration. My short term need for it went away, but I'm planning to integrate it as an option on existing sites next month.

Online applications were ridiculous, and the "oh you can't sell subscriptions" thing was crazy too. I had the exact same experiences Rob did. But those were all people over a phone.

I went to my local bank - they knew me, knew my history, asked for a bit of paperwork to verify existing sales, and we were off. Now... I'd asked what they'd have done if I'd had no sales. She said they'd likely still approve me based on my banking history, but my rate would be higher, but in all likelihood it would go through anyway. Talking with a real person who was in charge of making decisions like this, she explained they had the power to set up all sorts of edge-case merchant account scenarios for people, all various combinations of transaction and monthly fees. Most people just don't investigate their options enough.

To be fair, they could/should have more of this process on line - I didn't think I'd want to go through a manual human process. But... they made it pretty quick and painless.