I see nothing wrong with an approval process. You can find many affiliates complaining to aff managers on this forum to take down a spammer or a scraper – if all programs had such process in place most of this could have been avoided.
As far as Bodog’s process, I think it has nothing to do with how much traffic you get, but what your website looks like. Many of the webmasters rejected usually rely on a keyword-stuffed domain name with minimal if any content (you know who you are). And with Bodog having good enough SE ranking – it could afford to reject affiliates with such websites.
P.S. I have personally never been spammed by affiliate advertising Bodog before. I cannot say this about any other program I know.