Gage,
Well I hear you on stealing ideas, but that's very minimum you know. We have also had a few ppl steal some of our designs and put them in there portfolio - but they don't have them up long
Client referals are great for business too. I swear after we did those 2 designs for playboy inc. we must have got at least 15 companies / webmasters coming to us asking for info, pricing, time frame, etc.