Hosted galleries can definitely be worth it. The problem with some of the hosted galleries I've seen is that they are put together worse than the ones I've seen from TGP newbies.
Gallerymaking is an artform and what works one day doesn't always work the next day, but the days of a banner- 5 pics - a banner - 5 pics type galleries are long over and this is what I see from some of the sponsors offering hosted galleries.
A good gallery should be like a full page ad. It needs to grab the attention and sell the site before sending the surfer to the site.
The advantage of offering hosted galleries for sponsors is that they can control the advertising message. say they want to change prices or not even mention pricing on the galleries, they can do it without the webmasters having to worry about going back and changing their galleries.
I really want to spam here, but I should probably wait until we have the new portfolio designs up
