good info simmo!
after reading that article i’m not sure that reciprocal linking is on the way out. It will still be an important factor. What google is trying to do though, is discount link spamming from PR calculation which is a logical step since lately people go to mad extents to get a higher PR.
So if your site is totally crap, and you are linked from a high PR site, this might raise some flags as you’ve obviously bought that link there… my 2 cents