You mention the license system? does this mean that only registered members will be able to see?
Ok my opinion on addition to the directory should be a level of community involvement, i.e they must be a regular poster and must have released at least one hack for three for the current vBulletin version. i like your idea about discounts for more active hackers, that could perhaps be reduced if they're a master coder or something.
all in all it's great news, thank you
what wouldn't have been a bad idea thinking about it would've been to run the directory on a third party site and add that to the links at the bottom of the forum index and depending on how much traffic that directory got, integrate it here.