Welcome to the board Leedogg
I am pretty new at the freesite submitting also, but I have to say that is a pretty decent looking site to me. I have been going to one LL after another for a couple weeks looking at freesite after freesite trying to get a feel for it and as a surfer I think it looks pretty good.
A) I think the three link rule only counts links to sponsors or to your own sites. I have a enter link, exit link and 2257 link on all of the index pages and have not had a problem at all.
B) I did it the same way you did where I was linking the two galleries to each other but changed it on the advice of some folks here at the board. I now link the galleries back to the main page so that they have to look at the banners again before they go to the second gallery.
C) Fonz is right about being aggressive. Although I am like you and try to keep it from being too annoying for the surfer.
Good Luck with it!