I know i might be linking to a DP competitor but i found the first post in the thread extremely useful. sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182915
Don't believe everything you read from Google. In their FAQ they mention outbound links have no bearing on ranking. That is false in my opinion. It may not directly increase rankings but it does help determine relevance. See http://www.johnon.com/26/christine-dolce-nude.html One word on an inbound link to a page with that landing page having an outboud link using a different word can end up causing a site to rank for the two words combined even though they where never both on the same page. So who you link to and with what anchor text is directly related to your theme.
I agree that outbound links effect you. I think they show relevance. If you link to junk what does that tell google?