Comparing it to any relationship between Wal-Mart and Woolworth's is hardly even close to being the same thing. Not even in the same category by any stretch. I would agree, nobody should expect a store to advert for another store. But then again, there's no Wal-Mart Community or Woolworth's Community, far as I know. And if there is, I'm going to perma-block the URL's because that would all be just too weird. ;-)

Re-read what Anton wrote in its entirety carefully. It's nowhere near the same thing.

Having said that, we all know all you mods are cool. I doubt anyone would blame any of you guys for any of these kind of major decisions.
Not so sure how accessible the owners are to you guys now, but I did in fact have a good deal of experience in the past dealing with them. Even back then it was an exercise in head banging to try to suggest anything against their pre-conceived vision of the site. It was very very obvious what the priority was.
Nothing wrong with making money, nothing wrong with having a vision, but there's something somehow bizarre about continuing to do things which alienate a huge portion of your userbase while still calling it a "community".
With each and every new rule it feels less and less like a community, and that's a trend which has been building steadily.