The fact that they had to contact a corporate VP highlights the biggest problem with the App Store review process. There is no official two-way communication channel between developers and Apple. In a normal partnership (yes, technically developers and Apple are partners as they both mutually benefit from the App Store sales), there is a two-way dialog and partners *work together* to succeed. Unfortunately, the relationship between Apple and developers is not a partnership at all.

The app submission process is essentially a one-way street: throw the app into a chute whose length can vary from 1 day to months and wait for the app to, hopefully, emerge at the other end. There is no way for developers to engage with the review team before or during the review process, there is no way to prioritize updates (e.g. critical, major, minor, etc.), in practice there is very little hope of getting responses to inquiries after a rejection, there is no way for developers to know up front whether an app is likely to be rejected, etc. In short, there is no dialog. There is no cooperation. It’s “throw the dice” and see what comes up. THAT is a major problem.