I agree with you totally it just seems like a waste when there are so many free ways to get traffic-- I've done some extensive research on this!-
I've seen first hand how to get higher ratings by linking to yahoo search and google search on my webspawner sites and also submitting my sites to the webspawners Super Directory-It Works!!
http://www.webspawner.com
K. Autry
http://www.webspawner.com/users/driftent.html