Hello,

Directories are good for improving the authority's area and give a result in initial projects. Choose the right category also produces some good results.

All the sites I get a SEO work, I do the registration in directories, think that each one is one more domain with a link to your site. The vast majority, the links are follow and to register the job is too small, you spend a few minutes and sign up for a lot of sites.

The results are not surprising, but is a support for the initial work of linkbuilding, I think it's worth, including investing in some. The advantage of directories is that the domains are usually strong and is very easy to gain links to your site: D

In my view it is important to keep the old redirects, even after you have of replacing the Google index. With the 301 the relevance obtained in the old page, keep to the new page. The 301 is not only to Google index, but also backlinks your page has.

I consider that 8.5 k is not so big, I have sites with 20k and never had any problems or restrictions.

Anyway, if you want to remove the old ones, let the 404 page beautiful, which is always good: D