requests/api/project_spec.rb speed up

**What does this MR do?**
It improves the speed of the `request/api/project_spec.rb` tests by ~3 minutes. It also removes some test duplication, and moves some assertions into the same tests so another API call is not needed.

**Before:** `~3.51 min`
**After:** `~ 50 sec.`
I don't think you can or should change the style of a test based on pre/post code writing. The best practice stands, IMHO. I think if we use 'before(:all)' here we will achieve good test style and get the speed up because the before block will only be evaluated once.