Hi Waz
No I have a permission to use any material they have to offer plus I have my own material and from that I build unique websites and templates that can be hosted on your own servers and optimised for the SE´s.
As you know those free template sites that are hosted at GF servers are seen as duplicates and thus you cant get them listed as SE´s plus when you do it like I do you can see the amount of installers downlodet, although this feature might be coming with the new affiliate access update that is keeping us from checking our stats right now.. damn I am getting anxious to see my weekend stats 
All in all the biggest improvements that come from developing your own site are the facts that you can see proper stats, you can exchange links, get free traffic and have a unique site with a proper logo.
For example the Vegas Heights has been done by me, but I have used some items from the GF materials and then customised them to fit my design.
I have already given out one free site that is based on the Vegas Heights and I will be doing a lot more different designs soon. In fact I have already reserved a domain for this use and the site will be online in a matter of days, the domain is http://www.casino-designs.com ,but it´ll take a few days at least to have it online.