I think the passport renewal process is difer from one country to another. Your own case comes without much stress, though, and there are some similarities. In a case where you had to pay some amount of money to someone to run that stuff for you eventhough it doesn't seem necessarily but you have to though since you don't want to pay the price of time.
Another thing I learned from your passport renewal process is the fact that it is always good to verify information from the right source without listening to the naysayers particularly unverified information.