I am more in the ecommerce market and I think both are equally important. They both essentially help bring targetted traffic and will help you in the SERP's. I've been doing a lot of reading on the matter lately and I have came to this conclusion. As far as having a bad website, Qryztufre, I think this can happen regardless of which method you are using. You can get traffic either way using either method and never make any money because your website is simply that bad.
If you want "visibility" you should be focusing on online PR tactics... not link buying. Just remember... you can't be successful with only link building if you don't have decent content to send those visitors to, but you can run a successful site without following traditional link building methods very easily.