That's sort of normal for test servers, given that the patches pushed out to them are even less refined than the ones we see on live. That, and the whole test server system seems to be having some growing pains right now.
Edit -- as far as I know, test isn't closed to new testers. Hubs didn't get into beta early enough to qualify for having any chars ported over, but he *was* able to create a new char and play him for a little while yesterday, in one of the brief server-up moments. I doubt this is related to his having been in beta, but it might be.