Actually I suspected that about Nextdir - the way the owner has been promoting it. I saw his/her o) ads on Site-point too which emphasized on PR5 innerpages which is what Google is against. Then there was a thread again right in this section about how much a directory owner was earning. My point is- we are always being watched on DP - and and our directories are being penalized manually.
I also noticed the banner ad for nextdir emphasizes on PR, its like running up to google with 2 fingers shouting c'mon then guys i dare ya, risky.
I think until people understand that selling or basing price on another comapnys banner is wrong Google should continue to slap them around the ears. Its like me building a motor and trying to put a ford badge on it, crap will fly.
The thing that is curious about Google's PR penalties is that with the hype and paranoia going around, pretty soon nobody will even GIVE an outbound link away at this rate ... then how is Google really gonna know what a "popular" site is? If all sites begin to have mostly just internal links and nofollows, what is the whole point? G is gonna have to rethink this whole thing sooner or later!!!