It may be that our application was very straight foward and I was lucky enough to be working in a law firm at the time and a friend of mine advised me on how to arrange the application so the immigration officer would have an easy read. It's more likely pure dumb luck.
As for the common law comments, I'm sure it comes from a place of frustration but this forum is supposed to be for support not for belittling other peoples relationships and the paths they choose. Me and my partner have been together for a long time and never married simply because we don't agree with marriage (our reasons are our own), and I'll be forever grateful that Canada's immigration folk are progressive enough to realise it doesn't mean we're not committed and should be pushed to the back of the queue. I don't agree with marriage but I wouldn't ever question your right to do it, just as you shouldn't question the validity of common law relationships.
Anyway, I read all of these posts thinking 'I'm not going to get into this' and then I went and did just that. Oh well.
Good luck everyone, fingers crossed for all of you!