Really? I've used it before for others who found it useful. That's the thing about math, lots of options/styles. Just look at Spivak vs Apostol for Calc. Do you have a suggestion for him?
Rent control is not a benefit for well connected people. It is a benefit for middle income people that live and work in the neighborhood who otherwise couldn't. It requires filling out paperwork; are we really going to argue that we should just hand it out to the first person that puts their name down? There are certainly problems with the administration required to get into an apartment and NYC made some good steps to reduce the burden recently (e.g., can't be denied solely on bad credit, no more home visits, etc) but the answer isn't to make it an application-less procedure.