Well, exactly now it seems that Google pays more attention to quality of backlinks rather than quantity. further the social factor is also included in the algorithm as now it plays a huge role in deciding the SERP position of any particular website.
I notice that I build a lot of links and not a one shows up on GWT and then over night boom hundreds if not thousands of links are showing that is why I think all these people that are so afraid of building links to fast are just paranoid. Think about it if Google only updates your link count ever so often (I notice once every month or so) then why would it punish you for building links to fast?
I've found this as well (google not recognising all links). I figured it was because 'Google backlinks' were links only from sites that had a page rank of a least 1. Guess this isnt the case?