I agree, I do not know if is deliberate or not but there are other ways to prevent spam that doesn't require email verification. Like restricting ability to post/comment for some time or only allowing them to post after x number of comments etc.
In fact, reddit doesn't really have a strict email verification. you can type in whatever email you want when registering, verification is optional (idk if they changed it recently though).
They seem to have the questionnaire thing but no captcha for registration. I love that one of the 'golden rules' is 'No Tankie bullshit.' with a wikipedia article for tankie.