I think a big reason for character sheets is to make sure that the person wishing to join a game is a right fit for the game, as well as keeping numbers manageable. You kind of want to make sure that there's a certain level of expectations to meet, otherwise you really don't know what's going to walk through the door until it's too late.

My old forum from my youth didn't have character sheets and everyone joined everything, and I have nothing but fond memories from the whole time I did it (it's why I'm here!), but I'll tell you now, if I went back and read the shit I wrote back when I was 13-14 with no standards or expectations, I'd probably lock myself away in embarrassment. I know I would have wanted somebody to tell me to not do A LOT of what I did.

Even on this site, I feel like I dodged a few bullets from interested players in my games (or others I was participating in) when it was pretty obvious right off the hop that those people were not going to be a good fit for that particular game.

So yeah, character sheets? Good things!