I'm telling you, once you can figure out what the "other" guys, who are kicking ass in the SERP's are doing, you'll have a huge advantage in competing with them. It's a shame because for the difficult keyword terms, the only way to ever get a top 5 ranking is to spend a million damn dollars buying high quality links. You sure as heck won't get there with just article writing and directory submission. If anyone is interested in a report on this stuff. I have another thread going right now in the Services area. Take a look here.
What kind of terms are you talking about spending a million on links to get to the top 10? Heck, most of the mid-high xx,xxx searches/month terms I rank for I spent less than $200 heh.
It looks like comparison sites like MoneySupermarket.com and Confused.com are spending a heck of a lot of money on links. I've seen MoneySupermarket text links on the Financial Times site, wouldn't like to think how much they paid for those.