Giving users access to more forums based on post count is easily setup using the built in "Promotions" system and making new usergroups, each with different levels of access.
For the newsletter there is a very powerful newsletter modification called microNEWSLETTER available
here you can download after you buy a license.
As for your registration steps you can add code to verify custom fields appear to be valid by matching them against a regular expression- this is a little bit advanced but part of the standard vbulletin features.
As for forwarding them to an instructions forum that isn't a default option but could be custom coded.