new to this. what's the good and bad of having many outbound links as opposed to many inbound links; in terms of traffic, popularity, etc?
More inbound links can help your rankings in the search engines. Outbounds if they are to authority sites might help you, this one is debated but makes sense as it helps show what you site is about.
kensmithkw is right. Many inbound links is the foundation to good rankings, using good anchor text, authority inbound links, etc.. Outbound links to other authority and niche sites will help your site look like an authority in itself. Giving and receiving is how the web was suppose to work and that's how the search engines read it.
the main reason for Google with a PR 10 is 'cos of millions of inbound links..as people like to link to google on their site..