I agree that most of what you read out in the forums and E books is either outdated or something you should take with a grain of salt (opinions and general consensus conclusions do not write algorithms) - there are two links I can provide that will give you the most up to date and accurate information out there:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ - written by an engineer at Google who is the head of their webspam team and has the occasional interviews posted in video format that answer a lot of questions

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/ - official answers to questions about Googles search and has some links to some of their group discussions

I knew about mattcutts but I didn't know about the other one - thanks!

I'm also reading trough several SEO books these days, as I'm struggling to start my own baby LL, and some of these people seem to know what they're talking about some not, but we've all gotta start somewhere I believe... I'm trying to stay away from everything that even smells fishy and take it one step at a time and hopefully i wont trip and fell and break my own neck in the process.......

check ezinearticles or bigarticles, they have anough info about seo and search engines marketing.