David Sack summed it up by saying this is a young industry and as such we are bound to make a few mistakes along the way. I graciously agreed and told him I was sure we wouldnt have to travel down this path again in the future.
It’s VERY important that we commend postive behavior and changes. If we dont then we wont get concessions.
If people come back with the attitude of “Well, even though you’ve given us what we asked for we STILL dont trust you and dont want to work with you!” then why the hell SHOULD they change?
They might just as well weather the storm and move on if they believe they’ve already lost us. It also feeds the argument that affiliates are high maintainence whiners who are never happy. I think it’s best to not take that tack.
Now if you decide you don’t feel comfortable working with a program that has made these changes even if they revert back then thats your choice and I can’t argue the logic of the decision. I can understand that position fully. BUT publically let’s try to reward the good and condemn the bad until we get all this trouble behind us.
Prof – i take your point and i agree with the sentiment entirely. But we shouldn’t forget that for many affiliates, this is their business too and one should take the proper steps to ensure it sits on a solid foundation. I think it was Engineer who pointed out that public condemnation of the original changes was a positive thing, not only for FL & VPL to see how affiliates can combine publically to some effect, but also to act as a warning to others that this sort of trust issue won’t be readily tolerated. And of course it alerts new affiliates to the issues at hand. So i think in this instance “whining” has it’s place 
Should FL and VPL come back and agree to abandon the retroactive elements then i would applaud that as much for the admission as anything. I wouldn’t incidentally call it a “concession” though.
On the positive side, the whole sorry episode has clearly taught us that the T&C’s are NOT, at present, seen by these parties as “contractual” as they have clearly stated that no contracts have been breached, and of course the T&C’s have changed retroactively which you can’t do on an “active” contract without the agreement of all interested parties.
You (and by which I mean anyone reading this) do realise that their previous statement stating that they are legally entitled to make retroactive changes to their T&C’s means that they are legally able to change anything in the T&C’s retroactively (they could even stop paying altogether – yes i know I’m going over the top and it will never happen – FLW – but I’m demonstrating a point) and this effectively means we are working on a handshake – totally at their mercy and working on a trust basis. Now no offence, but if I’d told all my clients in my other previous businesses that I worked purely on trust, they’d have probably called me an idiot, or at best, naive.
So I’m sure we’d all agree that as business owners, we must take the necessary steps to protect our businesses. I would be perfectly willing to promote the properties again if it’s financially sensible and as long as I can be sure that future changes to the T&C’s will be notified prior to the date they are effected.
That’s not much to ask really IMHO. And if they never intend to do it again, then they may as well state it so we can all get on with a huge sign of relief and a warm fuzzy feeling 
Cheers
Simmo!