Yep, totally agree

I've noticed a lot of forums go to extremes with the use of captcha & wonder if you've actually tried to sign up on your own board after making it impossible to get past it 

I've set the default to 3 characters & clearly visible as that's the easiest for new users to use, even though there's a myriad of ways to make it difficult that's not helpful and if people can't get past your wild captcha they simply won't register 

so yeah "kiss" & get more users