As per my thoughts directory owner's should be paid for any manual work like removing links or articles because you have not paid them single penny to keep the link and promoted your business in their directory. now as a part of seo every one knows that linking to directory is a chargeable item, so you should pay at least some bucks to remove or do manual work.
We're still charging for the removal. 75% do. It's pretty sad to see all these similar requests and all seem to use the same form letter for removal with this bs about google hitting their site and that if we do not remove they will cause us harm, blah, blah, blah... SEO's spent years charging a fee to build links, now they pay to unbuild them.... Makes a lot of sense. :roll: