Yea apparently you have to have a special account with a username and pass and no one would want to share. Plus they have to build your app, they're smart.
As of about a month ago there is no limit to the trial version of Corona SDK -- you can use it as long as you like and you can even build to your device for testing.
So you could do the entire development of your game without paying a cent -- only when you're ready to sell it do you have to pony up the $199 fee. And if you don't have it, you could probably raise it easily using something like Kickstarter.com (if you can't get enough people to raise $199 then it's probably not worth putting in the app store).