Why does the FAQ use such restrictive privileges?
There are several questions I'd like to upvote (such as #2458), but we can't upvote questions without having 10 karma. This is a bit of a catch-22, since it's quite difficult to get even 10 karma when only 126 of the site members can vote, and most of those people, as far as I can tell, aren't really active members. Similarly, links must be obfuscated to get past the filter, which is an understandable precaution, but a hindrance when, say, users want to link to another question on the FAQ.
More broadly, why does i3 even have its own FAQ site, rather than relying on, say, a SuperUser tag?
It can be frustrating first but if you are active on the FAQ you will gain rapidly the privilege you seek. This is a good way to keep a good quality and disallow the bots to mess up with it. Moreover at the beginning you have enough to do what you need: ask/answer questions and consult answers.