On that we agree :D

What always surprises me with LOT is that they think a Senator or *A Gold requires an invitation... I don't get it.

As for the photos of the lounge -I don't know if they bothered to paint the walls or wash the carpet - nothing, but nothing has changed from the BA reign.

I think it happens when the reception of the lounge is not familiar or couldn't be bothered with all Star Alliance Lounge access rules, and this is the case.

The lounge serves a number of different unrelated airlines, not only Star Alliance, so the front desk would be confused, and they don't have BP reader/scanner.
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And it's not only LOT, it happens with other airlines too, for example I remember LH gave me an invitation to the lounge which they used at MEX airport.

That is usually because of the deal with the contract lounge. If they require a paper invite for their accounting, then LO has to issue a paper invite card. Conversely, LO might not want to pay for lounge access as decided by the lounge operator according to some criteria. Its all a matter of trust.

Although this is off topic - it does deal with LOT - and an improbable situation at JFK last week.

My friend was flying JFK -WAW - RZE and of course had booked the trip online and so had a confirmatory email for the through reservation, information including the ticket numbers (party of two). He checked in online.

When they arrived at the airport and checked their luggage in, they were advised by the local airport staff (contracted out) that their reservation was only valid through WAW. It took calling in the supervisor, despite having the email, ticket numbers, etc in his phone, that they admitted that the reservation was actually through to RZE.

There is no logical way to explain this,