The '10 post rule' was setup for a reason. The reasons being that a) people were registering shill accounts to vote for their bikes and b) there was the perception people were registering shill accounts to vote for their bikes. So I'd contend the rule is far from 'ridiculous'. It's pretty easy to rack up 10 posts without posting 'smack' (whatever that might be in an internet forum context) so why not get involved and post up a few pics of your Fat Chances? Further there are plenty of internet forums where one needs to rack up hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of posts in order to access various parts of the site - ten is nothing.
Welcome to the site anyhow, I'll lock this down before you get anymore stick. Although to be fair I'm not 100% clear what you might expect if you go onto any forum and open your post tally with 'your xyz is ridiculous'.