Directory submission can pay off in the long run, it seems. There is this site with PR6, but when I did a link:url, all the links that I found were from directories. And since all the links were from the correct/relevant category, I believe, getting a PR was easy. One problem I saw was, it didn't matter much when it came to SERP. Many companies with PR5 ranked better for many keywords relevant for this particular site. PR is important, but what is more important is how you got that Page rank. What kind of links gave you that PR...
it is possiable but fot that u need very huge backlinks from directorys, if big directoeys pr 5 points u, then it will be easy.
Did you check on Yahoo? Google´s link: command is more or less useless, try yahoo. Maybe that site has 1200 links from PR3-4 blogs...
I have the SERPS but not the PR. LOL. Can't wait for the update. And PR is important to the less SEO-minded people as you can basically "trick" them to advertise with your high-PR site.