I know with us we don't make it mandatory to be listed with select LL's or directories -- although its appreciated if they do. Making it a requirement would just make things more difficult for the webmasters, and yes, it could give everyone headaches to keep track of each one.
I would say take their rules seriously yes, but as Lemmy said, the ones that you just don't agree with that are rediculous, just pass those by and move on to the next.
For the other question...keeping track is difficult, but overtime when you have been a regular submitter to select LL's, you will begin to see trends, such as:
1. Do they approve your submissions quickly?
2. Are they too quick to blacklist you on things?
3. Do they give you help, suggestions, etc ?
4. Do they take a long time to review your site?
5. And what kind of ratio of approvals to rejections does each one have?
There's others I can list here but generally, you will know on experience and gut feeling which ones to deal with, whether they have lower traffic or huge traffic. Don't let the traffic be the only reason to submit to everyone. You definitely want to get a good relationship going with LL webmasters.
hope that helps some
