No, they're there alright.
There seems to be a variety of ways App World staff are involved. There could be more but these are the four I see regularly.
1. Testing and approving apps.
2. Dealing with messages to the correct mail box.
3. Approving customer reviews
4. Processing vendor review flags
My guess is they're the victims of their own success. I believe I read somewhere the number of registered developers is in the 100,000 - 200,000 range. It wouldn't take too many requests each to overload even a large group.
Of the above 4 items.
1. seems to take 2-4 weeks
2. a couple of days
3. a few seconds!!!!
4. 24 hours
