Whoever said that linking on the engines is done for, and pointless hasn't a clue what's going on. I'm so excited about this that I need to post it somewhere!!
I just finished a contract with a blue chip client that started off with an empty "redirect only" site, helped them develop it (seo wise), and turned it from a no rankings anywhere PR2 site to an ODP listed PR8 with thousands of top 10 rankings and backlinks, all in under 7 months!! Alright, granted they are a Fortune 1000 company and have a pretty large budget to back them up, especially in the linking game, but it's still very much possible to dominate your niche or industry if you put the work into it.
My advice to anyone reading this.. take your hard earned dollars, start a PPC campaign with GA or OV, or even SF, and slowly build up your natural seo campaign. If you keep to it, and get yourself only 2 new recips everyday for seven months (two updates or so for PR) you are bound to start dominating. Then as your rankings and traffic increase, lower your PPC campaigns, or only target the keyword themes you know you can't hit.
If I could do this for mortgages then you can do it for adult!
