Define "useless"... How can any link be useless? I use HubPages to promote tons of products and ALL of their links are nofollow and guess what.... I still get sales.
Yes its true they have stopped allowing live link. I'm not sure when they stopped it but a month back when i was trying to post a link it didn't allow me to.
It was true once upon a time, but it was fixed a within like a day. The problem is, people don't necessarily read the whole thread before posting in it!