&quot;PhD as a short-cut to getting permanent residency infuriates me&quot; 
You should not be. There are managers with 1 year work experience outside US and they come to US in L1 Visa and apply for Greencard in EB1 - Multinational Manager category and gets their Greencard in less than a year. May be this should infuriate everybody. 
By doing so these people use up the Greencard visas significantly. So EB2 guys from India who applied for Greencard in 2005 are getting their greencard now.