I thought that by ALL authorities conversion is supposed to be a long and drawn out process that is not "simple" or easy to do. Am I wrong?
Nope (first part) second part- yes.
When someone came to Hillel to convert it was more simple and straightforward. Also I remember a story of a Roman soldier who was assigned to burn one of the Martyrs who made a conversion on the spot and jumped in the fire together with the Rabbi being killed (he made the Rabbi burn faster as his request because the evil empire was trying to make the process long and torture him long time before murdering him).
the only issue is other personal gain circumstances (for example someone wants to "convert" to marry the rich Jewish guy (or girl) or something like that. Not for ulterior and fake motives is not good, but if someone comes to convert, even if they revert back to their old ways they are still fully Jewish.
I don't think its about time and their needs to be a very long wait. Also remember that especially women have certain amount of time that they can get pregnant and have children. Making a young lady wait too long wastes her time in not finding a soulmate and getting married.