Lexicanum New User Registration Question

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This is a big sticky issue we all need to get opinions on.

For Lexicanum's entire life it has had a very restrictive view on new user registrations.

Lexicanum is the most accurate warhammer wiki out there and in general we have quite high standards for sourcing and accuracy.

We also have the slowest growth rate compared to the other 2 main 40K wikis:

Wikia
1d4chan

Wikia allows anything and thus has very high traffic, but lower accuracy - and they use non-official art.
1d4chan allows just about anything from opinion, to profanity, to rules. It's an entirely different beast from what Lexicanum provides, but it is also growing fast.

How we do applications now

We have fairly robust registration requirements, and ask members to give us a lot of info, like a small writing sample designed to give us an idea of who we are dealing with. A large percentage of applications are turned down - usually for spammy email addresses, or extremely poor writing skills.

We (mostly me) manually check the queue for all the wikis and approve or disapprove things as often as I can.

The question - should we change this?

One complaint is that the entire process should be removed and we should allow instant registration to new users. This will give interested readers - instant satisfaction and keep them hooked. This WILL have a large impact on the community and we will have many more writers. The wikis will grow much faster. It also would remove the entire process of vetting new users.

The downside is:
There will be spammers.
There will be vandalism.
There will be well meaning writers who just can't meet the quality standards we require.

These accounts will have to be policed, banned when needed, and their posts reverted or moved. This will have to be done by the existing admins/bureaucrats.

This is how we handle things over on the Dnd-wiki.org wiki for Dungeons and Dragons, and it is growing steadily.

So what is your opinion on this?

How should we deal with new user registrations? I want the opinions of every admin and power user on lexicanum we can find.

We should also do a big update and promote a set of new admins to help police things before we make any changes.