I'm not huge webmaster savy guy, but I do have experience. I have been in the game for about 4-5 years, lost count how many years really, it's around there. I do know this, recripocal link exchanging isn't as bad as some of these knowitalls say it is. Yes, one way links are better, but it's very hard doing one way linking. You can get a shit load of traffic just by recripocal link exchanging. How do I know this, because I have built many websites in the past and have gotten a lot of traffic to them that way(which means money). I have a brand new 2004 Mustang Cobra to prove it! Here some pics of it next to my TA link. Why am I making this post you might ask? Because it seems like a lot of webmasters are scared of recripocal trading these days, don't be! I'm not saying trade with every site you come across. Trade with sites that are nice looking and have a similar niche. Because remember, you get traffic from people just clicking on links. Not just SERP power, which is a plus. If someone likes your site, they're going to check out other sites that you have linked to. So on and so on! Don't take in everything that some of these so called link professionals are saying. I think recripocal trading help the little entrepreneurs like you and I stay in the game. That's my take on this! I do suggest frontpage link exchanges only!
I agree, there's nothing wrong with exchanging highly relevant links that really help your visitors. That's called designing a site for people and not for search bots and Google likes it when you build helpful, authoritative sites for people.
Issue with reciprocal linking is there are too many SEOs with shadow throw away domains who would want you to link to their client website and give you a link that will be worthless next month. If it was honest, genuine link exchanges search engines wouldn't have pulled the plugs on this technique.