I signed up the week of July 20 and if I remember correctly it only took 2 days for me to get approved. That's very strange that someone has been waiting since July 12. That's over a month! I'd be furious. I think I got lucky though.

I have seen people posting charts and graphs about the expanding user base here and it's quite impressive the rate of growth that steemit is seeing. I've also seen Coinbase and Kraken mention a high influx of new users when citing longer than normal waiting periods for certain transactions or tier level verifications (Kraken). Kraken took several days to verify me at tier 2 and I've also had a couple of transfers (both Ethereum and both were outgoing from Coinbase) take 12+ hours. In both cases the high influx of transfer requests was cited as the cause and noted AFTER I submitted the transfer.

I think these are just run-of-the-mill growing pains that are common in any budding industry that's experiencing rapid growth. It's unfortunate but it's also a good sign that so many people are interested.

Sorry I don't have any solid insight on what could be done to remedy this problem but that's my 2 cents.