I work for another rental car company and can assure you that the counter does not exist to upsell you. It is there as a convenience to customers that want to rent a car without a complete rental agreement in place (think travel agents, tours, third party discount sites, etc). Frequent renters have a much simpler experience akin to Uber via the loyalty programs and company apps.
I know it feels that way, but we don't redo anything if you have a valid license and card on file. The lines are long at airports because planes deplane at similar intervals and there are a lot of travelers that come to the location without this information on file (think cruise ships, travel agency bookings, discount site bookings). If you download the rental app and take advantage of loyalty programs then you can skip the craziness.
This same experience is provided by every other brand via loyalty programs. The counter does not exist for loyalty (or known) members, it exists for all the other customers that come to the company via third party vendors (travel agency, third parties, etc). Most of those people do not have a license or credit card on file.
I work for a car rental company and can assure you that it is not some evil ploy to upsell you. It comes down to this: you are renting a really expensive ($30K-100K) asset and they need to make sure you are not trying to steal it. This can take a few minutes if you are unknown to the company. If you think about it this way, 5-10 minutes to make this decision is pretty damn quick.