Hi Will,
As regards spending thousands of pounds before selection, you must be thinking about people who have paid for lots of lessons themselves prior to applying. The only money you will have to spend before being accepted is about £180 for the stage 2 assesments - to cover costs of thecomputer tests or something.
This is all you will have to pay until you have been selected.
There are guys out here who had 0 hours flying before applying, so don't think you have to go spending lots of money on random flights just to get some experience.
As regards the online aplication, it is true that it is the only way you can apply, but they do get all the aplications and you will hear from them if they likfe what they see!
Good luck!
M330