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Getting links to multiple domains fragments your efforts. Unless we're talking about an exact match domain the long term benefit does not seem that interesting. Not to mention branding. There was a recent post about this in the blog actually, if anyone can find the link.
See potential users don't see your homepage yet. You're bidding for their click among 9 other organic results on that page 
If you're talking about controlling what Google suggests it seems it's based on user choices more than anything. Although I did have a few suprising sitelinks which I had to manually remove in GWT. It did not make sense as they didn't get enough traffic to justrify Google's decision.
Blog rolls are great when used as they should be, keep the title, but as soon as you start seeing strange mix of websites in there (casino, custom essays and life insurance) better stay out of it for it could turn nasty on you.
Speed could be a problem if it affects the performance of your site to the point of not being user-friendly. 2.8 however is not an alarming speed. I have seen sites with 5 and doing well in results. I rarely ever see websites in green (unless they are total text content only and no graphics and files to call on). I think Google is to lower the bar a bit on site speed expectations.
Eric are you using a content management system such as wordpress to run your website? If so then there will be functionality / plugins that handle this for you.
Conversion optimisation.
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Removal of: the two above introduced two new sitelinks which were much more relevant.
The best kind of competition is when it gets personal. Not necessarily about prize but more about status, ego, achievement and daring.
Apart from competitions you can try viral content. Here are a few examples of viral content I created:
Hope this helps.
To me this sounds like a completely legitimate reason to 301 the pages to that new location. If you do get in trouble with Google it will be pretty straightforward to explain it. If you run into an algorithmic penalty the solution would be to remove 301s. This, however is not a likely scenario at all.
Another option you have is to use rel="canonical" to tell Google that the page they're crawling has a correct canonical version. This will not only fix duplication but will also consolidate link juice much like 301 redirection.
Hosting images externally never had any impact on cases I had a chance to observe. The only problem I can think of is that you lose control over loading times or if somebody takes an image and links (credits) the image hosting domain instead of your domain.
Agreed, community is something that can not only educate but get you going and inspire to do more and better. It does get a bit lonely if you are hiding under a rock for too long.
OK, let's keep the various colored hats out of this for a sec. What they did is simply against Google's Quality Guidelines - and that's it. The level of severity is not as high as if they hacked somebody's website - nevertheless still in breach and it could bite them back if Google should ever audit their link profile.
I guess you would 301 if the offer doesn't exist/apply anymore and canonicalise if the page could have a long-term practical use even after the promotion expires. Right?
Several times I allowed WP to manage page redirects and this caused no trouble. I cannot say for instances where you rename file more than once as it never happened internally.
Absolutely. In fact I realised that I missed the above after posting but my edit did not register. I hope my editing priviledges are not revoked. 
You do have an option of reporting them to Google (with detailed explanation of what they did). I have to admit in all my years of SEO I have never actually done it. Firstly not all spam submissions get looked at and actioned and many are used to simply improve the algorithm on a global scale, secondly there are much better things to do.
I would suggest that you continue marketing, branding, networking and building compelling content for your site and products. Create as much buzz about your business as possible and get people talking about it.
On a technical side of things there are probably links that you SHOULD have and didn't think of it.
Here's a few tips:
Own Data:
Use data you have and nobody else does and write it using variables into normal human language acompanied with some pretty and easy to understand data charts (Set in tabbed view to prevent interfering with call to action elements).:
Examples:
Basics: Product Description.
The chance is that everyone will use same manufacturer-supplied product descriptions and specifications. Go through the trouble of rewriting to provide better descriptions in language users will understand and relate to. It's a big process so start from most important products and work your way down.
Encourage user-generated content (Reviews, quick like/dislike)
Use of relevant news feeds and social streams for that product or brand
One of our clients did this once. We restored the robots.txt to original version allowing robots to browse normally and pointed a few fresh links to the site. The site was back in the index within a week. If your site has thousands or millions of pages that may take a bit longer. We found that discovery through links leads to better and quicker indexation than when you simply submit to Google. Get Google Webmaster Tools account and ensure that Google has clear picture of your site.
If this is your only way of link building (especially if you do 301 only) it will start looking suspicious, your site may get penalised on manual review. I am not that sure if Google have algorithmic trigger for this.
There are countless little resource/ppc/affiliate websites out there trying to earn a few bucks. Most of them are pretty thin, but every now and then you will run into a good one. I would start by targeting each country and finding those quality forex sites to cross-promote with.
If you provide data/information a widget/graph/tool might be an ideal way to earn links.