i just want to add that daz had problems with their own servers when giving out a ~ $200 program for $2.   and that only made downloading slow, not impossible.  

and personally, i think it would be a benefit if you reduced your file size in the ways previously mentioned (jpeg textures rather than uncompressed textures, mat poses rather than duplicate characters, etc. - see above link).  because i would have to do all those changes anyway when i got it, and frankly, i just don't have that kind of time.  there are a lot of people managing to do the download thing: dodger, xurge, rawart, philc, xena, etc. 

acadia's very right.  the situation has changed vastly from even when i first bought hosting space to now (and even then, bandwidth to have downloaded products wasn't prohibitively expensive).  most places offer great bandwidth, tools to build stores and galleries, and a very large amount of space for less than the cost of lunch. 

oh, and on the permenant archive:  i've had several cds fail to copy random files after longer periods of time (1+ years).  i've lost entire directories because the directory file couldn't be read.   i've owned various cd repair kits that weren't able to compensate for the minor scratches and such cds seem to accrue over time.  i've had cds get broken through various accidents (including one upon being shipped).   and unless you're burning the cds ultra slow, that data's burned in pretty light.  conversely, i've had precisely one complete hard drive failure in which the data was unrecoverable in my 20+ years of using computers.  and presently i use only seagates, which come with a 5 year warranty. 

so far as my experience goes "permenant archive" means (firewire) hard drive back up, not a fragile and quixotic  optical disk.

edited to add: i do like the looks of your stuff, and i think you're a great artist and asset to the community.  i didn't mean this to just come off bitchy.  i just want to add to the advocates for downloading and image compression.