I think what you are seeing is a shift in paradigm. Keeping "old" traffic sites like TGPs open to general submissions is asking for a boatload of work with no real compensation - it all works a LOT better if you open those type of sites to your partners only. As for "new" traffic sites (like tubes, blogs, etc), its up to you to leverage these traffic arenas and make the most of it because they are not going away.