Spearmaster, it almost sounded like you just said “content is king.” Not a common mantra anymore, but still one worth remembering.
The idea is that the more outside sites you link to, the less PR that is passed onto your internal pages. That indirectly reduces your PR because since your internal pages have less PR they don’t pass as much PR onto your home page.
Some do actually believe that you drain your own PR reserves by linking out as well. The theory that a given page can pass on a certain value that is divided among its links is a bit more plausible, but even so, internal links can’t account for very much where pagerank is concerned. It goes against the concept of a link being an authority vouching for another. Google engineers are smart enough to realize that an authority vouching for itself is to be expected and not worth much…
I think mixed opinions are the only constant. That’s why “SEO goofballism” strikes me as so humorous. These debates, the same ones, have been going on for years. We all do what works for us.
I, for one, think decent content, relevant links and well crafted pages is a good start, but it’s an ongoing experiment and likely always will be.