"Pay for Placement" .... "Pay to Play" .... gotta say no... never... not in this lifetime or the next. 

I love my Olympus 24-120 2.8.  But I got tired of waiting for a better camera body (with a bigger chip) so I bought a Mark II with the 24-70 last month.  I found the 24-70 to be soft in the corners on the wide.  I took it to the Canon service center yesterday.  Hopefully they can fix it.

Re: Also, you haven't mentioned Jupiter.  Do they not figure in your work?

Jupiter aka Stockexpert was bought out by Getty last year.  They were shut down. 

I believe all businesses need to replace at least 20% of their product line every year to maintain status Que..  It doesn't matter if it's cars, clothes, photos or widgets.  Buyers expect newer, snazzier, more technically advanced products. 

The difference with stock photography is the shelf space is endless.  The argument that time spent deleting non sellers / destroying content is better spent creating content, is a valid one.  Personally, I don't see the point in leaving non sellers online.  I'm only in my second year but I've already begun weeding out some of my newbie mistakes.   Eventually everyone hits a plateau.  Hopefully it's a nice one.  With a view. 

I would like to see them consolidate the upload and review process for dual account contributors.  A "Big Stock opt in" button at Shutterstock would improve everyones productivity. 

They'll have ten million images on line next month.  That's a nice marketing hook.  Though, I think they would be wise to weed out the oldest non sellers as they move forward.  If an image hasn't sold in four or five years... it probably never will. 

Istock likes submissions to be noise free and silky smooth.  Shutterstock likes sharpness and bolder saturation.  The nondescript technical rejections at Fotolia have be baffled.  Does anyone know what Fotolia's technical preferences are?