I think the reason this got rejected was the fact that it has commercially dubious aspects to it which would probably have lead to several customer care complai

I think the reason this got rejected was the fact that it has commercially dubious aspects to it which would probably have lead to several customer care complaints to Apple, had Apple accepted it and published it. I don't think the "joke" aspect has anything to do with it. We recently had a joke app published on the app store with no problems at all. In fact the first submission of the app came after the rule clarifications they did (last Sept? Oct?). Of course the humor(?) in our app doesn't revolve around ripping people off ("Ha ha...you bought our in-app purchase. Jokes on you!"). I'm actually a little sorry I clicked the original article link. It sounds like they spent two days on something with the specific purpose of getting some publicity around a rejection. Mission accomplished, I guess.