You got that in one....you certainly write . You would think people would have better things to do than write about a site they claim is past it's best, and much worse, but here you are writing more rubbish.
And either a scam, so you pay and could have got a free listing ie they take the money offer a guarantee within 6 months and they suggest the site for free, the ones that get listed normally they get paid for, the others they give money back to the person who paid it, if they remember to claim. When the site owner who got listed could have suggested the site for free and got listed just the same except for free which is how DMOZ operates. OR If you find one of the few rotten apples of editors who do take money, how long do you think it will take us to find them? Then, with a site owner who is desperate enough to want to pay money for a listing, the editor and the site are both booted (plus any associated sites) for ever. How stupid a gamble is that? If it is a listable site it will be listed, if not it won't and if many posters on here are to be believed it's just another link, so why risk your site not being listed, taken in by a scam and pay for something you can do yourself. Motto.....Suggest to what looks like the category that most fits your site, if you have a base then you can also suggest to the correct regional category in the place where the base is located, and then forget it and promote your site in other places there is nothing more you can do at DMOZ, you have not lined some thieving sleazebag's pockets for what seems little advantage and may get banned forever. No brainer.
OR you can pay AOL itself to have your site listed tens of thousands of times, and be perfectly legit, and the editors will even defend you commercial listing! Because the site itself is not bound by it's guidelines, only you are...
You should see who is the editor for dating sites, then ask him to make a dating site ring (link farm) and pay him to add your sites to the link farm and DMOZ. It is just a suggestion but as I remember, it was working pretty well for Realtor sites who were becoming part of the Editor´s link farm.
LOL. $5,000,000 to buy DMOZ with some old servers and a group of corrupt, incompetent or passive editors. It is year 2013 and not 2000 and there is an economic crisis in the world. Even $500 for DMOZ is too much.
Because of the ongoing corruption during DMOZ life time, it seems the correct answer should be forever.