If you purchase the Small Business Edition licence upwards, you don't need to leave the credit footer. The single licence however does require it to remain intact.
The featured listings slider you see is not a plugin, but built into the theme. If you intended to use something else this would require custom coding on your part.
Appthemes does not currently provide custom coding services, however the next best thing at present would be that one of our development team
scarstens actually provides his services for hire. You can also find other members of the community offering their services for hire in our theme services thread (accessable to customers).
I know the question of using affliliate various systems has been raised before, however I'm unaware of anyone who has one working at present. Again, this would come down to customization of the theme.
:)
