Links pages do not, themselves have to be bland. Optimizing them for SERPs and providing content to make them enjoyable - themselves - can add an extra dimension to any site. ANY SUGGESTIONS
Depends how many link partners that you have. If you have 3000, its pretty hard to do anything except a well themed directory.
I think descriptions for the links adds some nice content, especially when all the links are themed, the descriptions should also end up being pretty well themed. Other than descriptions i've seen people write up little introductions for each section, not too bad an idea. Maybe you could display some news feed, or other free-delivered content based on the theme of each category. Just some ideas!