It appears that I /must/ use Facebook to try out mog with a free account... is this true or is the site just overly convoluted? If it is true, yikes. If it's not true, still yikes.

True for the present time. Was not true in the past.

Based on your comments and looking around the site, I was excited about checking Mog out. Requiring facebook is a deal breaker for me. Why restrict the way users can join?