It is possible and you need to clearly define your strategy. You need to have a balance in your links. If no PR2 sites contain links to your site, but only PR5 sites do, that's kinda suspect... Your netlinking should look like a pyramid, with high PR links at the top and low PR ones at the bottom. That's verified through my tests !
yup very right ... i have experienced this with one of my site .. the result was good wen i started but after this update they got worst and now its no where in Google ... but still having traffic from yahoo and msn too For getting high pr to your website try to get backlinks from authorised websites like .edu and .gov and other quality links relevant to ur niche. and yea get those links slowly and not in bulk manner.... it should look natural or it would lead u get out of search engines.
You need to just target the quality stuff no need to go for so many activities at the same time you may be penalized. Just stick to basics produce quality content which should be unique and try to get only 7 - 10 links which has pr 5 or 6 and don't get a link from links.html or resource.html just try to be in content of the pages. Frankly instant PR is of no use let the page rank should come naturally although the process and the time will be longer but the page rank will stay for longer time.
Do you want a high PR or do you want authority for your niche? That' s not necessarily the same thing. I know a guy who ranks in the top 5 in google depending on what data center you are looking in a competitive niche, and he has a PR of 0.