I know it's true. I've doing this for over 10 years and with Adsense since it's beginning. I know because I've been there. If you want to make money with Adsense you have to have a site with a niche focus, you have to have content that is of real value (not directories), you have to get traffic, you have to make sure your site pages are sturctured so that Google can deliver ads that match the interests of your visitors, and you have to make it easy for your visitors to see and click on your ads. Simple. There are no other "secrets." That's it.
Blending isn't always good, I've found that sometimes making ads really appearant but following the site colors at least in general (like coloring text/background negative to the position where they're located) works a lot better.. Depends a bit on the site though
This is probably off topic but I don't think you're supposed to place "Relevant sites" title on top of AdSense ads.. isn't that against TOS? Other than that, I've seen some improvements, hopefully things will turn for the better. But don't expect any big bucks from directories or forums, especially from AdSense.. But even if your stats look bad they're not THAT bad.. I have a site with even lower CTR (37,000 impressions/week with 28 clicks).. That REALLY sucks. Of course it's not in English and hasn't really any specific niche (dictionary-type)..
gotta experiment obviously. if you're not making money from it then you need to move the adsense or something. Add a background to it >:]