Could you please clear what are you speaking about - Page Rank or Ranking of some page in Google? Anyway, PR technique is the same I think, and PR does not affect on rankings much. As for rankings - if anyone know exactly he'll become a billioner.
I too can't understand the question properly.Are you talking about Google new algorithm? If so its nick name is Google Panda now its new version Google Panda2.2 is on the way.It affects on scrapper sites and duplicate content.
Why you guys think much about PR? Well it's important but not as much as you're worried. Just optimize your site properly, add unique content and keep quality link building. Your site will have a good PR automatically. Anyways after installation of panda, Content is the top most concern of Google. So pay more attention on it.
No matter how much the techniques of google alogrithm changes but the common and old things will always be there to help you rank and they are... +Unique content +Maintanance +Proper Niche
I've been experiencing much better results by simply writing Unique Content - also recently, quantity has also been a big factor. The pages of my website which have lots of content are ranked better compared to the ones which have fewer words.
quality high page rank back links, quality fresh content, regular updating, these are helps to increase page rank (PR)
If you want Page rank on your website then you need quality content on your site and other do off page work on your website. like Article Submission, Social bookmarking and share your website on social media sites like facebook, twitter and google +1.
i think good pr link and most important thing .edu and .gov links is very important in the eye of google