One of my sites displays sitelinks. It doesn't have a site map (I never use sitemaps...IMO good deeplinking is the best sitemap). There are some pages which appear in sitelinks but have no content except links to other pages. That's SEO's most under-estimated fact.....
I have a site that just got site links. The links are only present for search terms for which I am the number 1 result. The site is old and is authoritative on the topic, so I would say that google probably does impart some human intelligence into it's selection for site that receive site links.
I would say yes it does, imagine if it start showing site links for all website listed on page 1 (1-10 results) what would the first page look like. The they also add Search boxes for some website. It would become a total mess.
"I'm looking for quick short cut..." I think there is no short cut. You have to wait. You need to have excellent internal linking. Also, get some backlinks from high PR pages.