I enjoyed reading that Dan. Nice post. As for directories that list links, I find the niche and local directories have the highest quality/relevancy.
**Update** I have been contacted by one of the team of directory network here in DP, yousafzai, via pm yesterday. He made an apology to me on what happened and explain the situation that it may because of server moved and caused some of the listings in database were disappeared without any intention. He did even offer me a full refund for the cause. I chose to have my listing re-appeared instead of a refund as it was an easier way for me anyway. The problem got resolved and even I cannot say I have 100% confident with them for what happened but at least he did contact me directly and got the problem solved instead of a run away. I can say he is honest enough for this particular case.
if you look more closely to http://www.nsrl.ustc.edu.cn/ you will olso will find <div style="position: absolute; top: -999px;left: -999px;"><a href="http://www.ehef-newdelhi.org/"><img src="/clear.gif" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.meirennu.com/"><img src="/clear.gif" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" alt="web directory"></a> <a href="http://www.verendous.com/"><img border="0" hspace="0" alt="directory" width="1" height="1" src="/clear.gif"></a></div> Inside http://www.jorm.org.mk/ you will find. </table><a href="http://www.meirennu.com/"><img src="http://post0728.httppage.com/images/clear.gif" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" alt="web directory" /></a> <a href="http://www.ehef-newdelhi.org/"><img src="http://post0728.httppage.com/images/clear.gif" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" alt="business directory" /></a> <a href="http://www.verendous.com/"><img src="http://post0728.httppage.com/images/clear.gif" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" alt="Premium Directory" /></a> Hope it help's