I think there is a insight hanging around here. This thread reminded me of the thread on 99designs, and the attitude of (some) designers towards a fairly "robust" contest format.

The idea that a recruiter will "get to know you" and "deeply understand your needs" whilst still being on commission at another company is foolish.

I think the OP is a bit confused - he seems to want things both ways - the faceless contest approach (where he sees the Twitter feeds and linkediN pages early) and some how also have the deep and meaningful (where the recruiter says you should meet this guy, and without looking at a twitter feed you trust the recrtuiter and set up the interview

Either bring recruitment in house, and see it as long term nuturing of talent, or turn on a beauty parade and expect to do a lot of the weeding out of bad candidates yourself.

Now, if I was paying a few hundred a month for the beauty parade, I suspect that would be fine. If I am paying 20K / hire I want the recrutier to send over Mr and Mrs right.

Its that fact that recruiters are lining up beauty parades but charging for deep and meaningful that gets the ire of the OP up