True that! But nothing explains why they aren't sending out test notifications and when they do its normally not in the order they received the application in and if you are lucky you will end up getting a letter to write the test and take the oath in a couple of days of time, if you are not you don't even get invited to write the test or write your test and wait for a good 2-3 months before you take your oath. This is totally absurd.
At least be logistically true to the applicants, after all its the software that does the job, nobody is asking the VO to maintain the file cabinet and sort it by the date received. If there are complexities (RQ) etc, you can expect the application to be delayed(even though I think the whole 36 months is taking it a bit too far), but the last time I checked my AITP notes (about 4 months ago), everything was clear, passed all the checks and am still waiting for a test date. The thing that doesn't make sense at all to me is if there are no pending actions (checks) on the file,why not just invite for a test? Why the huge disparity and discrepancy in the timelines? I am behind by a quarter at least compared to the other March-April 2013 applicants.