Isn't Google bombing one of the reasons why Google has come up wit the Sandbox idea? They're trying to dampen the effects of these kind of articifial SERP changes.
No, the 'no follow tag' was introduced to stop blog spamming. As far as the sandbox.. Im not so sure I believe it is that generic or simple. I would expect there to be lots of sandboxes of different types. This domain was registered on 12 may 05 - yet the concert was 02 july 05 http://www.live8live.com It had no issues with a sandbox and lots of links im guessing..