Site looks pretty good Tigermom...well done
Yea, those links are buried a bit on the main page. Not something I'd reject the site for...but other reviewers may.
As to how many recips you can have, I've seen sites with 20 recips that still looked good. But, you almost have to go with custom recips to achieve/maintain a clean look with that many recips. Using the individual recips from each site can get more than a bit haphazard looking with 20. There have been a few threads about custom recips and I recall the consensus being that most link sites do allow them as long as their anchor text/links remain intact.
Forgot to mention...I've done text only free sites, and have found that a combination of text with banners always worked best for me in the long run.