This might sound like a dumb question but when generating an Amazon text link, the HTML includes a 1x1 image in the code. As far as I can see this doesn't have any benefit. Is it OK to remove the 1x1 image from text links? Is there any reason for it being there?
Yes. It tracks impressions. Basically if it's not there your impressions statistics will be off. You can remove it. There is no way for Amazon to know whether you have it or not since some people/browsers have the image displaying turned off.