hey I've bought a few links before on a few sites... an example of where I bought some www.pagebowl.com I've seen traffic come in from these sites ever so often, which is great for the value...but question...would it help to link back to them to increase my PR?
No, your PR depends on links coming to your site..not necessarily on links going out of your site. Although the outgoing links are VERY important..not much for PR..IMHO..