Hi John,
Ok if that works for you but Shared Files was not designed for linking to files from other content, it is designed mainly for sharing files securely by roles so that only users with permission can download the file. I guess it can work ok like you are trying to use it but only if the shared files instance is configured to allow anyone to download. If its configured for only certain roles then those links would not work unless the user was in the allowed role.
For just a list of public links you could just as easily use a plain old html feature and upload the files using the link dialog in the wysiwyg editor, though I suppose one advantage of the shared files is that it keeps track of download counts.
Best,
Joe