Because the applications are created with private threads, if a certain individual doesn't have the permissions to view an application when it's created, they'll never have permissions to see it. What's happening then, is it's trying to access the thread for the application, but are being denied, and it redirects them to the thread list, which shows which threads they have access to.
I'm suspecting these people having these troubles have recently been promoted (or more accurately, were promoted after the applications for the newer people was submitted).
In any case, the application process is getting some serious revamps over the next few weeks, as it's shortcomings have become pretty obvious.
---- The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
