To have a linklist it's not everything. You need to make sure that you have something that interests webmasters in the first place, that could be a niche that has some seo value, or extra features (? World is not enough
) that will make your place interesting enough to keep webmasters submitting to your linklist. In the mean time you need to submit sites ( with your recip too as well ) to major LL's as often as possible.
Then you need to make some good trades, some seo research, some social promotion and all of that may not be enough. Like you said it's a very long commitment, but don't rely only on your linklist, make it as one of many pieces in your network. Many here owns a network of lunklists and they could tell you that linklist is only a part of bigger web along with hubs , blogs etc ....
My point is this: don't build if you are here for quick buck.