Yeah, for example the plastic on the front page of your passport has some light reflections, the human can abstract that away, and the machine says: I start reading the name at the corner of the reflection.
The visa procession fee is for a reason. Someone has to WORK to figure if everything is oki. And then he decides: Yes/No. The work is the same, does not matter what the decision is.
Of course, you paid for some cake, but now you have no cake, that feels harsh.
However: month vs. day mistake is an extraordinary good hint!! As most countries use DD/MM/YYYY notation with either "/" or "." as separator, but some countries reverse it in many variations.