In May '09 I was terminated from a equity research sales desk at a mid-tier investment bank where I was a 20 something sales assistant.  My main responsbilities were data resources management, providing clients with our research product, booking lunches, dinners, cars etc... One of my secondary responsibilites was collecting the legal paperwork from potential intitutional clients that wanted to begin trading relationships with my firm.  The final step of that process was getting the signatures of the sales person or trader who brought the relationship in, as well as the desk supervisor, on an internal adminitstrative document kept on file at my firm.  Then submitting those documents to compliance/legal for approval.  After several occasions of being ignored by traders, sales people, and supervisors for their signatures on this document, I signed their names for them.  Nobody specifically asked me to do this, but nobody ever complained or asked about it.  Most were happy the process was expedited.  This went on for serveral months.  My compliance department found out about this and terminated my employment immediately, as well as reported me to FINRA in May '09.  As of 9/20/10 I was suspended from the industry for 6  months (until sometime in March '11) as well as fined a significant amount of money. 

My question is two fold.  

One, is it fair that FINRA took well over a year and half to deal with my case, and only started my suspension a few days ago based on an issue dating back to May '09?

Two, and more importantly, when my suspension is over, and with a mark on my registration which is now a closed issue, what are my chances of getting back on a sales desk in the industry?  I have heard conflicting opinions on this.