Hi webber,
Yes, I did misunderstand your last post! I now understand where you are coming from. I guess part of my rant was fueled by seeing some mid-large sized companies seemingly spend a ton of money on Overcrap results, which are usually junk/fake when they could be paying you or I 250K per year to achieve solid, long-term results and even at that hefty salary still save a ton of money and achieve longer-lasting results. And I was motivated, in part, by seeing some of my results in Big Daddy and wondered why major companies wouldnt want some one like me or you to do this for them, while online casinos/dating programs are knocking down our doors to be an affiliate of theirs.
As far as college kids: I mean, as far as I am concerned a good SEO will know that Search phrase 1, which may get less traffic, will convert better than Search phrase 2, 3 or 4 combined and will use their expertise to drive traffic and the right kind of traffic to their company website using SEO techniques, development, creative writing etc. Now, I agree with you there may be some college kids doing grunt linking and maybe managing an Overcrap account, but these are temporary solutions, whereas a good SEO can achieve a better long-term solution at a lower cost (even at some crazy salary).
Thanks for all your comments and to everybody else who has participated in this thread.