Instead of "pounding the pavement" for one way links, why not do something really smart? Like, capitalize on the traffic that is already hitting your website. However people reach your site currently, if you have the magic link script by LE on your site, you will get link requests without hunting them down or putting forth any effort. If you don't have a script that collects links for you, then you're missing link opportunities every day as people see your site and pass it by because you don't have a link collector on your site. My link exchange script is excellent and it has been around for some time. The Link-Exchangers.com site will ensure that your linking code exists on a webpage someplace and it doesn't have to be domain A links to domain B with B linking back to A. A can link to B and domain C can link back to A. This is seen as a one way link in the engines. I'm not charging anyone at this time for the advanced membership upgrade. Just help grow the website and article database. Here's a link to learn more and see some sample directories created with the software script. http://www.link-exchangers.com/advance_member.aspx
I don't think there is any one single silver bullet. Using a combination of techniques to build links is good. I use directory submitters for article and website directories, and vary my keyword phrases in anchor text. You can use a tool like submitease or others available. I like submitease because it shows you both the pr and alexa ranking for each directory. Or you can hire a submission service to do this for you. I believe that a gradual building of links is page and not having Google see thousands of links show up in the blink of an eye. It's good to take a look at what sites are performing on the first page of the search results and see how many links point back to the site. This can be deceiving because I don't think Google always displays the true number of backlinks to a site.