Sure, becoming a LIR and obtaining an AS-Number are two very different things. You dont need to be a LIR to get an AS-Number. You can apply for an AS-Number as soon as you have routeable ip-space and 2 upstreams for BGP4 peering. (Please correct me if they did change that recently)
To keep the administrative overhead small, I'ld suggest to let the new AS- owner show at least two agreements within "x" month after the assignment of the AS-# only if there are less than two verified peerings. I'ld see a verified peering as a record in both AS's whois-entry _and_ seen on the RIPE BGP-router (or on some other "neutral" point, like EP routers).
ripe-227 (asnrequestform), issued 1 Octboer 2001 requires an "X-NCC-RegID:" I do not recall when exactly the NCC stopped to work on ((PI-)IP-Adress and AS Number) requests from Non-LIRs. It's been a while :-) Wilfried.