One other source of traffic I didnt mention as I really didnt want to confuse the issue too much:
The WMs that are out there submitting free sites to Link Lists (at least the ones that are doing a good sales job) also all have some sort of fake linklist or HUB that they send their exit traffic to to filter the traffic even better. They also tend to add hosted free sites to their lists in an effort to garner more sales which is a fantastic approach.
If you look at pure economics of the issue - there are quite a few Link Lists out there that do get more traffic than some of the bigger TGPs - you would be surprised at the number of Linklists that have well over 50,000 surfers a day. Now once that traffic gets filtered to categories - Using one of my Link Lists or even GGs, Tommys or Richards Realm - the hosted free sites that get listed, stay around forever - no rotation off the list like a TGP, and no replacing normally with other hosted free sites.
As a matter of fact most hosted free sites get a special place on some Linklists to get even more traffic than a normal WM submitted free site.
The next part of the equation is to look at the search engine keywords you are targetting - dont take something like "sex" or "porn" as a good indicator, because again you are talking some trash traffic compared to more targetted traffic to a specific niche.
However if you look at the results for something you are really pushing - say and example would be cumshots -
http://www.google.com/search?q=cumsh...n&lr=&filter=0
you will see that the top 20 on Google are almost exclusively Link Lists and most are their niche categories for cumshots and facials.
That traffic is Golden because youve already knocked out the people looking for watersports
Now think about the conversions of that traffic if you have a hosted free site on all of those Link Lists - and then compare it to what you might get from 80,000 people looking at you free movies on a group of TGPs - and the Link list is going to get a good percentage of traffic thats looking for good sites to spend their money( a good rule of thumb is around 5%) - wheras a TGP with CJ or traffic skimming might get a .002% conversion rate - now plug in your profit per sale - and you will see the difference - and its a major gain for those sponsors using the hosted free sites.