Darn Helio, I didn't know you were the one to originally port the contest to GitP! Many congrats for your perseverance as a chair for all these years, all the fun and the laughs and the awesomeness you've brought here. I have quite a hard time imagining the subforum without an Iron Chef thread popping up on the first or second page. Hat's off
For what it's worth, there was a CustServ answer somewhere I think where the very question of how do Trapsmiths qualify was raised. I remember the WotC guys answering that a reasonable take on the subject would be to replace the sentence about qualification with "Must have spent all his previous level filling his spells slots of the level the character has
Haste as a known spell by
Haste spells".
EDIT: ah, there it is. This quote comes from Minmaxforum actually. So the designer of the class said:
As an aside, this class is so interesting and promising, we'll be sure to get a colorful round! I remember reading you've set your mind on the theme for IC C quite a long time ago, Helio. Is that why?