I don't think there's one magical solution. The more we work with you guys, the better we will become at reducing friction and eliminating wasted time in the process. It shouldn't take 5 days for companies to vet potential contractors, like is often the case with oDesk.

You mention a lot of important issues like trust. I'm hoping by being extremely selective (and limiting the number of accepted hackers initially), we'll be able to keep quality and trust high (or make necessary adjustments).