Well first off everything should always be tested. Once you get positive results change something and test it again. That's up to you but if the aim is to get the articles to rank in the SERPs then to me it seems counter productive to link the articles to your site. Like I said, think it through - here's the last nugget - why not do a series of articles for the review page and a series of articles for the main article. Review the results go with what works and review the other for improvement areas. I really wouldn't like to advise you on long or short phrases because there's already too much speculation in the world and not enough factual answers. I'd simply say split test it and see what you rank for. Try some short phrases and pad the article with other relevant associative phrases. Then try some very targeted long tail. See what happens.
I believe you must have gotten your answer by now. even otherwise, a look at this strategy by Andrew Hansen sounds very much matching your requirements. Check his book up for yourself. Here is the link: http://andrewhansen.name/.
Spinning is unnecessary, just make sure any seed article (an article on your main money-site) is different from any article distributed. Linkwheeling is unecessary and so is spinning. Just distribute your article to as many places as possible and have them all pointing back to your site.
The only concern I'd have with that is his site would now be competing for position in the SERPs. If the site is not already well ranked or at least moving up then chances are slim. However eza is already well ranked, and so it's pretty easy to get an article on eza into #1 spot than it is to get the site to #1 spot. Pushing the article into top spot will also get as much organic traffic as the site would but with a lot less effort involved. If he was trying to get the site moving up then I'd fully agree with you but he's trying to sell affiliate product and the quickest result producing method IMO is link wheeling the article.
Well, then why use an Ezine? Ezine you can't put a salesletter. Why wouldn't you piggyback on a Squidoo, Zimbio or HubPages? Something you can rank well with and then also put what you want on it as far as content (without some stupid guidelines).
I think, the strategy you are talking about is very common today. You have said a simple thing in a complex manner i.e Publish article on directories( with website link in signature) interlinked them and then promote them through bookmarking.
I think your missing the point. Everything you said is a given and all that should be done as well except the site is going to be harder to rank #1 in the SERPs than the article is. The site, at best wouldn't rank for the first week but the article could be ranking within 24 to 48 hours. I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying this is my method and everyone has their own.
I just checked some of my article directories links, and all my links in my resource box are all nofollow. How will linking the articles to the eza article help if they are nofollow? Won't nofollow cause them not to get the link juice so they won't rank high for the keywords I target in the article?