Thanks for sharing - I guess this will be useful to many who will visit this thread in times to come.

The seller said on the auction:

> I also don't have the time to manage affiliates and implement marketing strategies for this site anymore.

I'd have treated this as warning sign #1. This explains probably why

> it always took the seller forever to answer my emails and finally transfer the site

> Is there anything else I can do beside swallowing up the loss and try to promote the site anyway?

The site does look to be well-designed and SEOed - if you have a handle on the deliverables, I'd suggest promoting it.

As a last case scenario, you can at least try to cut your losses by putting it back on the auction (mentioning all the facts) and see what it can fetch.

HTH