Well - I guess I better fess up as to why I went to the cat recips - and it actually had nothing whatsoever to do with SEO - as a matter of fact the submitters will be happy to know that Im switching back - but it will be a text link not a gif file
The reason I did it is that I knew that a certain gif file of mine was in some autosubmitters programs - I used it as a tool to find the autosubmitters (at least the first part of the detective work anyway) and it worked
I would say that based on what I have experienced and some other LLs have seen, that category recips dont mean shit unless you also go the route of requesting that the recips be on a page already in Google - similar to what one sucessful LL owner did to get some really nice spots - but I have to agree that branding in this day and age is ten times as important (building bookmarkers) than trying to run a LL based on SE's only - it may work for a few months, but then when Google tweaks something you try to fight Google instead of expending the energy on making your brand and getting "return surfer trust" - believe me - that group spends way more money
/added - I know that putting the submitters through having to do the cat recips was a little extra work ontheir end - but I think the benefit of having less competition for spots on LLs gives a bigger benefit to free site makers