Hi Purpleedge,
1) When we first started years ago (in an industry we had been in for 15 years) We allowed users and clients to enter in there own FREE listings – honestly less then 50 out of 10,000 did it – 90% then did it wrong – uploading 1 gig images etc..
We then had 100’s of spam listings – I tried everything to stop it but somehow spam listings got posted without confirmation…
It takes my a minute to put on a listing and it is seen as an extra service.
2) Again I had problems with registered users, I use mailchimp which shows who has subscribed to our digital magazine.
I find it much less hassle to do the admin side away from the site, although I’m talking from past experiences with all the directories I have used.
Google docs and excel don’t give me problems 😉