I'm trying to think of both the business as well as the community members.

Can you try to elaborate in which way this will benefit the members? It have already been pointed out that its not your responsibility to whether people get a virus but clicking a link on your site that take them to another site. You have no way of removing links faster than a person wanting to post such link can post them. so if you mean that you are responsible and after applying this rule, someone gets a virus through a link that you didn't remove in time, will you then pay a compensation or what type of responsibility are you referring to? its absurd, So removing that part of the benefit. What effect are you aiming at for the people creating the freebies, as they have already stated that they are not interested in the "deal" that you are offering, which is perfectly understandable as its pretty much a one way deal. Contests with freebies will be quite difficult if there ain't any. So what are you offering those making freebies, that are so beneficial for them, that they should add all there stuff here and close there own sites?

What benefits do you aim for with Renderosity as business? You have vendors, customers and even forum moderators saying this is a bad idea. Freebies doesn't make you money directly, it make a stronger community under one condition, that those that make them post them here, even if this is only links to other sites, it have value for you, as you have gathered them and its quicker for people looking for freebies to go through a sorted and maintained list and thereby visit your website. Freebies them self wont converted directly to money, except through them driving traffic to your site with a chance of these visitors grabbing a few products a long the way, but this rule does exactly the opposite of that, because you are driving away those posting the freebies, so its bad for business as well. The vendors should be the ones supporting this idea, if ANY, but i doubt you will see any of us give you a thumb up for this idea, its so counter productive for the community as a whole.

Also people don't need someone to cheer them on, if things are bad and people are unhappy the only way to solve it is to listen to the community and fix the issues that they are requesting rather then spending time on stuff, that everyone clearly agree on is a terrible idea. It makes no different if this is an old idea that just weren't rolled out or not, it was just as bad an idea back then as it is now. So just because you haven't followed up on it, doesn't mean you have to implement it at all costs.

If you really stand firm on this being a great idea, then please elaborate on why this is good for both business and the community, because it seems like no one shares your view on this? You ask for people to trust you, and the only way I think you can convinced anyone about this, is if the plan make sense, its not a matter of just wait and see, because if you roll out this rule you will ruin your freebie section. And agree with 3D-Arena that you might as well close it then.