Hmmm. Well then, it's entirely possible that you can /beta without being accepted. If you can't right now... give it a little bit. Then try again 
If you go to the My Account bit and check to make sure that your email is verified, don't worry if there's no link in the email you get. I haven't seen that there's an issue, but I'll continue to check into it.
I'll ask about the inactive subscription issue and see what I can find out.