A hub (by most of our definitions) is a page/site that you link to from your other sites, but you don't submit to Link Lists or TGP - sorta like a page that's all yours that you feed with your own traffic.
You do this bu building Free Sites & Galleries on the domain - stuff like
http://www.freeasiannudesexpics.com/free-site/ &
http://www.freeasiannudesexpics.com/gallery/
As far as the counters, there are a lot of threads on them floating around here - this is the one when I announced I was banning them:
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...counter+banned
Long story short, counters have become more malicious with spy ware & trojans & hacks & whatnot over the years, so a lot of Link Lists & TGP's have banned them.