Philip, I think that many of us share your dismay about this situation. I, for one, haven't been complaining as vociferously as you because I estimate that complaining will only increase my frustration level -- it won't solve the problem.
People will always be imperfect (that word describes me!) and no amount of automated checking will be sufficient to prevent people from creating duplicate profiles. It seems to me that it's more productive in the long run to work on improving content (adding sources, adding profiles, adding connections, adding variant names, merging duplicates, etc.) than it is to complain, since I believe that high-quality content is the best preventative against low-quality additions.
