I would like to understand more specifically why you believe these are not useful tools. If some members are posting more often to expose their Signatures, and if others disable Signatures or add those members to their Ignore lists, it seems there would be fewer clicks.
There would be fewer clicks, but the default setting is to show signatures and there are a great deal of forum members that do not know how or do not care enough to turn off signatures so there is still an implicit motivation to continue posting. In addition, the behaviour that is absolutely most frustrating to me is the useless posts that are simply an excuse to have the opportunity to show a signature.
If I turn signatures off, I don't see the signature, but the thread is still bumped to the top (even if I ignore that user), and as time goes on, the forum gets further bloated with unnecessary posts that make it harder to search and find pertinent information.
In my opinion it is not that there aren't bandaid solutions to help make it moderately more bearable, but my point is what is the motivation to FlyerTalk to allow these in the first place? They make no difference to FlyerTalk itself, but are beneficial to a few (those who place the links) and detrimental to the majority (all who are affected by the bulk and frequency of the shill postings).
Mark