This is just my opinion and I know a lot of people here will disagree with me. I don't mean any disrespect to anyone on this, and I think there are probably exceptions to what I am about to say.
I generally feel that teaching the martial arts is not the best method for earning one's income. When one turns teaching into a business, the relationship between money and teaching can often deteriorate the quality of the training. The need to keep the school profitable, which is directly tied to the need to keep money flowing in, often takes over as the number one priority. The quality of the instruction, as well as the willingness of the teachers to give of their time and knowledge to their students, can take a back seat, especially of money issues stand in the way.
I think a lot of high testing fees arise from this situation. They are seen as a way to boost profit, and the notion is presented in such a way as to get the students to accept it without question.
If teachers taught more for the love of the arts and earned their bread elsewhere, I think a lot of these problems would be minimized. Teachers can then charge more reasonable fees, enough to pay the costs of running the school and have a small profit on the side, and no need to charge all kinds of testing fees and black belt club fees and whatnot, and also no need to pay for big venues with lots of judges to test a hoard of candidates. Keep the operation smaller, keep it in-house, and to hell with the big orgs and whatnot. Of course this also means that the teacher has the luxury of choosing who he will accept as a student, and doesn't need to take any schmoe who walks in off the street. This keeps the bad apples out of the school, or simply eliminates those who might not be a good fit with the rest of the group. The income generated is not critical to the teacher's very survival, so turning away a potential student doesn't harm him.
In addition to the school I mentioned above in which I train, I also have trained for over a decade with a kung fu sifu. He recently introduced me to his uncle, from whom he learned his White Crane some 40 or more years ago. His uncle agreed to take me as a student, even tho he has retired from taking new students, and only has four others each of whom have been with him for several decades. I pay him a reasonable monthy fee, we train in his back yard on the weekends and at night during the week, there are no facilities to speak of, but it's great training. And while he is retired from his job now, this man did have a career separate from his teaching, and that is how he made his living. I think it works very well and ensures a higher quality of training, altho it does limit the number of people who can get involved. But that's the trade-off. If my sifu had not been willing to make the introduction, I would not have had this opportunity. The door was closed to everyone, including me.
But of course martial arts today is big business, and with things like the Olympics on the line, I realize that my vision of how things ought to be done is not shared by everyone.