I don't think so Mr. Gill. The ads are so mixed with the content that you can not differentiate, even if you are a webmaster and you click on them. That's what they want.
Ezine is definitely king of the hill, and probably always will be. Their resource box back links do add value to your site, much more than other directories. I do find them very picky about the articles they publish though. I had 5 decent articles, 5 were rejected.
Google gives ezinearticles an exception to place more ads in that particular article page, that's why so many people want to submit to articles to there, so that their site will get some of the exposure from the search engine results
Some people also use to give them articles for nothing like link promotion or advertising etc. They only want their articles to be published.