Yes, I agree. Though we can speak about this a lot here, no one can change this, YMC. That's how the world is. Large percentage of people use this to "attract" customers. I just saw a conference being advertised as "World largest social media event". After little research I laughed myself
We do. People like us... you, YMC and everybody else who can see and to differentiate good from bad by simply putting side-by-side 2 directories and by comparing them with each other. You can start by looking at the title if that title points to site or directory internal pages. Then you can compare titles and description to see which one has best editorial integrity. Does directory offers More Info, Rate, Review, Report pages because they too will have backlinks to owner's site thus multiplying amount of backlinks by 3 or 4 times? Does link have thumbnail and if it does, then, is there another hyperlink to owner's site? Go to More Info page. Well, go to AMRAY Web Directory More Info page and compare what you will find in there to thousands of directories that are calling themselves "quality". "best", "human edited" etc. just to boost their own ego but whereas in reality has nothing to offer. Use some generic term like best free directories and see where that directory in SERP. If you consider all pros and cans, in the end of the day you will be capable to determine which is which and if title one of the best applied fairly or you see just another sells pitch. Have a fun
According to my experience, PR is always damaged when you increase oubound links to new and untrusted sites. However links to old high page rank sites may be useful for SERP.