You are dead wrong. I have been through multiple symbol changes on a CEO and consultant level and NEVER has FINRA let us pick our symbol.
Finally, a symbol change takes ten days if everything is in order. Why the delay? The symbol change was a bad idea because it puts you in FFINRA's legal review process and all sorts of bad things can happen, not least of which is a series of scared children dumping because it's delayed.
And for the record, I own 925,000 shares of ANYT, and to prove my point, I will sell 5,000 right now. Watch the ticker.