This is really a slippery slope, but there are reasons. Obviously spam users will try to create accounts as quickly as possible, for spam reasons. Email and captcha verification will handle this.
Another is the issue of clumsy or accident-prone users that will forget their passwords, which can be worked around by email reminders/resets. Sadly, users may try to add fake email addresses(or mistyped ones) and lose access to their accounts, requiring admin intervention. Simple verification can force users to get their account into a self-rescuable state before adding any data.