Popping my business head for a moment, there's probably money to be made somewhere along the line from this whole problem:
If agents shouldn't start charging for submitting work, maybe others could.
A group of publishing industry professionals with some spare time could club together, start a website that unpublished authors can submit their work to for evaluation, criticism and proofing ... before they send to the agents and publishers.
Charge $200 a time.
It'd rake it in