My apologies for digging up an old topic, but RS is really not that bad. If you find something on it, that is rather large in size, they do have a cheap 48hr premium pass for like 9$ US. For quite a few things I am into it seems to be all hosted via RS links. I became a premium member (yearly for roughly $76US) and enjoy their serivce.
I do understand the complaints from those of you who are using the "free route", but then you are getting what you pay for so to speak.