That comment sorta makes me cringe for choice of branding, as sometimes when anyone who talks bad about someone with a "very popular SEO book" people will assume that it is me.

I would just like to clarify that I have never had a customer paying 5 figures a month that was unhappy with what they got from me. ;)

Also agree with you that spammy links can work better than what one would think if they attended Google's sermons about quality links. Though typically from a risk profile it is better to mix and match so whatever your promoting doesn't stick out as an outlier & get whacked at some point.