This is gonna take me more than 10 minutes
I started my Link List back in 96 so my intentions we not what they are now. A Link Lists job, as far as Free Site building webmasters are concerned, is sending traffic. FS webmasters build & submit sites based on the Link Lists rules & they then get traffic in exchange for a recip links - it's just another version of a traffic trade.
Now, a Link Lists job as far as the surfer is concerned is to provide a variety of sites (free, avs and/or pay) that the surfer can enjoy. And when I say "enjoy" I mean that the rules of the Link List are usually based on what is a pleasing & not an annoying surfing experience. Every Link List bends their rules for this & that & hardly any hold the sponsors or affiliate programs to their rules.
There are other aspects that have evolved since 96 & SE stuff is one of them, but I never link or not link a site based on it's PR or anything like that. The SE benefits are secondary IMHO. And I don't know too much about the term "link popularity" other than I can look it up over here:
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
As far as reviews, we get 100-250 a day submitted to us, depending on the time of week & year. Some are automatically deleted (blacklist) & the rest are reviewed by hand. We accept about 30% of them on average (some people can't read or have been given bad info)
And I think I answered what makes a free site a good one
