YouTube registration hassle

Has anyone else experienced problems registering with YouTube? After some hassle, I managed to register. I am surprised that such a well known website would have the following problem. I chose a username, password, retyped the password and solved the CAPTCHA (the image where you have to type the letters and numbers you see). I pressed the submit button and it complained that I did not read the CAPTCHA correctly. I had to type and retype the password again and solve the CAPTCHA. After several tries, I managed to solve it but this time, the username had been taken. Why not tell me before that the username is taken? When typing the username, you should immediately be able to check the availability. Why do I need to type and retype the password after each time I failed the CAPTCHA? Besides, why should the CAPTCHA be so difficult to solve? They have even a button you can press to tackle a new CAPTCHA.