@SimonW : Yes, I recognise the problem with hotlinks going belly-up but for me it's a matter of so-be-it. We will delete the posts that are empty and have no meaningful follow-up discussion and be done, We can't expect everybody to share their images indefinitely. But obviously every site will make their own choice in that matter.
@buildbot : I've seen a lot of old Photobucket images that still show, but with a big watermark and lower resolution, haven't seen too many that completely vanished yet.
And hosting images from a paid site isn't too risky in my case think, only if I stop paying the yearly dues the images will disappear after some time, which for me will probably after my death.