I think it's by design, not because they're stupid. They saw those forks right away and decided to let them get settled in and comfortable, and then removed them. Knowing that the hammer will come down eventually is really demoralizing. Knowing it'll come down right away means you can test the waters and see how it goes without much personal investment.
What's different here is that it's an option and not the only method.
It also actually makes it significantly easier to find someone when their user name happens to be the same as 5000 other people.
It’s the best option though, can’t think of any other method you would want to use