It's better to strike a deal than an auction type so the forum can choose the kind of ads that is suited for the Bitcoin community,(...)
Maybe. But it doesn't look like there are any ads at all currently. With the auctions, there were always some takers, and I think a fair portion of them were legit businesses operating for quite a while (i.e. some gambling sites). It seems odd that none of them managed to strike a deal with Theymos directly.