I think most savvy directory owners do not require a reciprocal link these days. I've just read this thread regarding Googles removal of this line from their Webmaster guidelines: According to the guy from Google: He's also benign about submitting to directories saying: Comments?
Relevancy i feel is important. I removed recip option from all my directories. Hes stating the realism of low to no traffic from dirs, still they are most important for backlinks, as a combo for serps improvement with other efforts practised too. Il throw a message to google while im here, keep on penalising directories and traffic from the search engine will be very low too, resulting in lost confidence in the search engine. Your hardly going to want to invest in adwords with the company who very quickly penalise you. Wonder if they actually think long term at times.
I don't think reciprocals to a general web directory are good for your site. However, trading reciprocals with a niche directory can be very beneficial if the reciprocal gets you listed on higher pages in the directory. For me to give a reciprocal link to a web directory it has to be closely related to my site.