OK, I asked an owner of a large, well known and long time TGP what he would have done in this situation. He said he would have pulled the thumb/gallery even if the sponsor didn't cancel his affiliate account and if the sponsor wanted to cancel, that was fine. In fact, he said he's done it MANY times
. And this was before he knew it was guy's wife, the TGP was on a free host and the link was taking the surfer to an autodownload script.
He may be the only person who agrees with me that the content owner has the right to cancel an affiliate if s/he disapproves of how his content is used and it took me traveling several hundred miles to find him, but at least I know I'm not COMPLETELY nuts.
BTW, nice, sunny, humid and HOT here in FLL - no Charley yet