Direct to intermediate approach fix?

Yesterday, we had filed /G (with a CNX-80). Our clearance was KPOU IGN
V157 HAARP -D- KHPN. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

HPN was using the ILS-16 (http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0612/00651I16.PDF) We
were on V157 somewhere north of VALRE when we got "fly heading 200 to
intercept, um, no, tell you what, proceed direct FARAN, cleared ILS-16".
This is a pretty common thing for NY Approach to say, but as I study the
chart now, I don't think it's legit.

I asked NY Approach for an initial heading to FARAN and got back an annoyed
sounding, "it's the initial approach fix" (along with a 200 heading). The
problem is, it's NOT an IAF. Which means that you can't pick it out of the
menu of IAFs for the approach. And since it wasn't on our original route,
you can't pick it out of the flight plan. You need to spell it out letter
by letter from the database (which takes a while, hence the request for an
initial heading).

The alternative would be to select IGN as the IAF from the approach menu,
execute that, then go into the flight plan and select direct to FARAN.
Except that it takes a while to figure that out, and I'm not even sure if
the box will let you do it.

It was my understanding that there's only two legit ways to clear a flight
for an approach -- give them direct to an IAF, or give them vectors to the
FAC. In this case, "direct FARAN, cleared ILS" is neither. Am I correct
that this is a bum clearance?

If they want to send people direct to FARAN (which they often do), why
don't they just declare FARAN to be an IAF? Then it would get into the
database that way, it would show up on everybody's IAF menus, and we would
all be happy campers.