This is a real head-scratcher for me. It seems that every few days some directory owner states that he/she has just "lost" all the entires in their database for whatever reason. They then request that everybody re-submit their websites because they HAD NO BACKUP. The thing that really surprises me is that there are people who actually do resubmit their sites. Why? It ticks me off to spend some time submitting my sites to their directory (beneficial to both parties), only to find out later that the directory owner didn't think enough of their own website to do a lousy back-up. I will never understand this.
Usualy the case is they didn't loose it, they just switched hosting companies and didn't have a way to export the data.
It is because directory sites are way too easy to start these days. On top of the situation you described, you still have people setting up directories on free hosts, etc which disappear after 2 months when the webmaster loses interest. its just a part of directories these days unfortunately
I've never owned a directory, and as such have never seen any scripts. However, I find it hard to believe that the directory entries are not stored in some type of database (mysql?) that allows the data to be exported/imported. Even if the owner didn't have the technical expertise to perform such a transfer, I'm sure there are many people in this forum who would gladly offer a bullet-list or summary of the steps required. I'm more inclined to believe it is as yfs1 has alluded to ... the owner just doesn't care much.
It's called: "QBC" short for Quick Buck Crew. These are the people who put up a directory every other day with hopes to make a quick buck. Funny thing is people like Chris (Alive) keep track of all directories and makes sure they put his links back up. It's sad, sorry and funny all wrapped up in a nutshell.