I agree about the content spam thing – I don’t see any harm if a quality site with content puts links up in blogs. It seems, however, that the mindset that is behind a thought-out website is the same mindset that doens’t do the blog spamming gig. Well, not with utilities that’ll get them on 1,000’s of blogs.
My site #1 for “casino games” in Yahoo – and that’s without blog spam, unless you want to count that one day when I submitted to a handful by hand, but that accounts for maybe .05% of all my incoming links.
Have another site #1 for “slot games” on yahoo, and that is definitely without any monkey business. Still can’t figure that one out. 
I have to admit, thought, that I paid for links on a couple sites with huge forums and zillions of pages, and my link pop has freakin zoomed off the charts. I didn’t expect that, now I’m sure google is going to tell me to go to hell. Not renewing those links! I think they’ll do more harm than good in the long run. Didn’t have them when I got great serps in the first place, this was an ill-thought out attempt to hold good spots in the face of blog spamming competition. My bad. Live and learn.