Jay...yeah...I knew about that stint you had at the desk
actually I do totally agree with you about the linking structure and the internal link trading....I was one of those that ran a FPA for a long time and killed myself in the SE's for about 2 years...got straight and its finally working out...rankings for the one little tiny keyword I wanted are doing fantastic, and all of the other phrases are finally paying off big-time.
I am an advocate of the more "quality" content is always a good thing...I just think to break the barrier takes the type of outside incoming links and anchor text that gives your site the hub authority that they look for in a 7. One other mistake I made and since rectified is always asking for the same linkback text - and found I was getting a slight dampening effect due to it...as soon as I started changing it my rankings soared.