Alexa account linking doesn't redirect to LWA auth URL

I configured an Alexa skill and am trying to enable it for account linking with Login With Amazon (LWA) as an Identity Provider.

Here are the details from the 'Account Linking Screen':

Here are the LWA security profile configurations:

Here's the snippet from my launch request handler in Java:

Contrary to my expectations the launch request handler doesn't redirect the user to Amazon's login screen.

It is my understanding that upon launching of the skill, the redirect to the LWA will need to occur (as specified in my Java handler) and the user should be prompted to go to the Authorization URI as specified in the first image. All the parameters below it in that same image will be automatically appended to the URL as query parameters during that redirection. Or are they not and I should manually provide those parameters when populating the Authorization URI field on the Alexa Account Linking page?

What am I doing wrong here? Where can I get some more insight into why the redirection does not occur?

Should the skill pass Alexa certification in order for the Account Linking become functional?

I'm testing the skill from within Alexa Dev console. I'm using the latest Java Alexa SDK 2.

Users will be automatically redirected to the skills login page (Account Link) when they enable the skill from their Alexa app.

When you send them an Account Link card the redirection won't happen automatically, instead the user's has to click on the Account Link card from which they will be redirected to the login page.

If you login to your Alexa app or http://alexa.amazon.com you could see the Account Link card there. If you click it, you will be redirected. As of now this is not possible from the Test Simulator.