Or you can simply send your traffic directly to one of those affiliates. Getting targeted traffic to the right affiliates can make you a lot of money if you have enough traffic. If you build the html page you can enhance the traffic to your affiliate by listing with search engines, links pages, picture posts, and directories, but you must be careful to not just attract ANY traffic. You need the traffic to remain targeted. The other options you have are to build a web business on the domain and sell to the customers directly or you can sell the domain name to someone who will do one of those things.
Commission is better.
Both are ok. If you do the commission and the affiliate can't close sales, find a new affiliate. These are also domain names that can be sold vs. you doing the work, but you will have to seek buyers and market to them. They probably won't come to you. See the answers to the other questions about your domain name before you decide to protect it in this way.