I'm confused. There is something morally wrong with affiliate links?
At least I won't have to keep track of the affiliate links threads, since I never buy anything from the threads posted here, I only get free stuff. So I think we need another rule that nothing I'm actually interested in can ever be posted in the affiliate link threads, since I will never read them, and I would miss it!
On a more serious note, as several others I would be very curious as to why this sudden rule change came about. "Effective immediately" is usually reserved for when bad things have happened, and the tone of the post suggests that as well. This makes it a lot harder to find bargains and deals, and in the end will only make this forum more difficult to use, not to mention that it might dissuade people from posting deals and bargains in the future if they get nothing for their hours of hard work. Or was that the point?