Why cannot anybody read what has been written so far by the players to gauge the quality of writing, the style and play of the story?

You have to apply (which i haven't gone beyond yet) i don't want to commit myself to a story only to find the quality of writing is poor and has a bad narrator. Sure i probably can leave, but that might be after going through the motions of setting up a character. This works both ways, if i am a narrator and i have new players join who do one scene and leave or just leaves after setting up a character means more work for the narrator to delete their character.