Not sure how to put this, but here goes...
Being partnered with Machinima, doesn't it ensure that you don't get flagged as long as you follow the guidelines of not attempting to and claiming to own copyrighted content, such as audio and video? Machinima has contracts with these publishers, so unless something has changed in contract with these publishers (Machinima hasn't said anything otherwise), there shouldn't be any flags from publishers, right? Got a bunch of flags on my videos as of late, but I did not get my account penalized.
Not that I'm complaining, I upload a video or two once a week and I find it to be a side luxury with a nice monthly sum, but I don't depend on it at all as a source of income. Although I'm a fairly small channel (13.5k subs), I've never really tried to "go big" since I can't see myself committing to it full time like other YouTubers do.
What happens if this goes away? That's fine, I'll still upload videos because I like to share my moments whenever I feel like capturing, editing in Sony Vegas and then rendering (this actually takes a bit of time and isn't as easy as some might think). There are a lot of factors when it comes to uploading for me - am I enjoying the game? Is it worth uploading, would it be worth someone's time? I've been uploading to YouTube since 2006 I believe enjoyed it without being partnered for about 5 years (only got partnered last year).