Apple id seems to implement the proposed solution. They send a verification email but you don't actually have to click the link, you can just ignore it and your account works.

This can turn out bad though. I thought I had an apple-id when buying something on the apple site recently. But my standard passwords didn't work so I reset the password (via an email sent to me personal email address from the password reset sequence). When I logged in I found that my email address was actually registered to someone else, and I had their name, full address, phone number and credit card number but with the first 12 digits X'd out.

The person has a similar name to mine, and my email address is my initials and last name, so I believe they just made a typo in the email address when they signed up. But it seems pretty bad that you can do that without verification when doing so can give someone your personal information.

A motivated scammer could register a bunch of typoed email addresses and try resetting apple-id passwords. Then you have a 1 in 333 chance of buying stuff with their credit card because you have to guess the security code (I'm guessing you get 3 chances but you might get more).