In reply to Justin Tadlock.

I need to comment about this Justin :)

"If the theme author is going to be recommending the plugin anyway, they should be able to make a few dollars through referrals."

I really do not think affiliate links should be allowed at all for a couple of reasons:

It never holds consistently that the author truly believes the plugin is the best one to use. They are making the recommendations for these plugins because they get paid for the recommendation. Disclosure is important.

I have seen themes recommend more then one contact form plugin and more then one page builder plugin.

Themes hosted in the .org repo are supposed to be able to work with any plugin. When users see these recommendations, they likely take them as pretty important because the theme author is sitting in a position of perceived knowledge. So a user fully familiar with "Contact Form 7" may switch to "WP Forms", because you know "the author recommends them, and maybe something has been coded in the theme related to this recommendation". Bottom line is that the basis of affiliate recommendations by authors are not always in the best interest of the user.

Affiliate recommendations usually involve tracking, and opt in becomes very important. What the Astra theme did was not appropriate at all because of the tracking that is ultimately involved. Maybe the plugin facilitates opt in, I don't know and don't care. The code originated in the theme and reviewers do not know what the plugin will ultimately do about tracking or opt in.