Wow, this is awesome! I made a request for a link directory a couple of months ago and was pretty much told that no one needs/wants to create something like this for free. (Which made sense, because it seems like a tremendous amount of work!)
But here you are! I can't believe how robust and attractive this hack looks. I haven't installed it yet, because I do need subcategories and link totals, but you've done an excellent job so far, and I can't wait to try things out once you update. And I bet this directory would be a good match for the "top sites" hack!
Couple o' questions: How flexible is the layout of the link listings template? For example, if I wanted to tweak the HTML into a single-column layout rather than the two columns that exist now, is it possible?
Also ... just something to think about as long as you're doing all this hard work

... when you add ratings, do you think you might add a "top rated sites" link, as you have for most popular and newest links? That would be very helpful, I think.
Thanks for all you've done so far, Arunan!