What is it from me that you would like me to share? I think this is a very vague question. My reply to your post was to provide another view on this matter since it ''walks'' and ''talks'' like a duck if you catch my drift. These MFA-Made For Adsense websites are outdated and have no effect regarding success in this Adsense business. only ones having success are the ones selling these MFA websites to newbies or gollible people. That was my point.
The ''nooks'' as you downplay it are the issues at bay to be wary of. There is no 3-4 month program for succesfull results with Adsense
Directories may provide targeted traffic if your site is listed in the proper category but the traffic is minimal and not worth even being mentioned as a factor of adsense results. I would choose 1 million untargeted hits over the directory traffic anytime since the click through percentage of the 1 million hits would be more then the possible click through traffic from directories.
Directories only provide a link for you which in result when things ad up give you a higher page rank.
I would not depend on it regarding traffic flow since and this is most important most of the time your site is deeply burried in the results.
How do you mean changed? Requirements for being a Premium Publisher haven't changed that drasticly. You still need a serious amount of pageviews to be one.
The ''amateurs'' as you describe that land up in a goldmine are hard working people and they don't use those stinking (pardon me being frank here) MFA websites. They make sticky websites with relevant content and take time to build a serious website dedicated to a certain topic/service or product.