>>That is, even though Alexander had a long wait time just to hear responses, there are expensive services you can use that make all that wait time and pushback

>>That is, even though Alexander had a long wait time just to hear responses, there are expensive services you can use that make all that wait time and pushback from hidden rules disappear, so you don't see it as a problem. You can make the wait time disappear. In my experience, you cannot make the pushback disappear. I've been scolded multiple times by our IRB for improper and too-technical language in our Informed Consent forms, amongst other violations/gaffes. IRB is poorly-designed. Should it go away? Sure, in its current incarnation, yes. Will it? Like anything government + university designed, there is a snowball's chance in hell that anything with that many moving parts and bureaucracy will ever die a true death. The private markets designed a workaround for this and they are accepted as every bit as good as the university and medical IRBs. As far as "expensive," your time is valuable if you are a scientist. You should act accordingly. The IRB fees we pay are less than 7% of the fee it costs to publish in major peer-reviewed journals, which is another racket that is propped up by the government + university complex. So I don't consider it expensive in the least. (It is well under $500, to give you a hard number.)